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A M E R I C A N C I N E M ATO G R A P H E R D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 5 T H E H AT E F U L E I G H T C A R O L T H E 3 3 T H E H U N G E R G A M E S : M O C K I N G J AY - PA RT 2 V O L . 9 6 N O. 1 2
DECEMBER 2015
An International Publication of the ASC
On Our Cover: John The Hangman Ruth (Kurt Russell) keeps his guns drawn and his
wits about him in The Hateful Eight, shot by Robert Richardson, ASC. (Photo by Andrew
Cooper, SMPSP, courtesy of The Weinstein Co.)
FEATURES
36
52
64
78
Wide Wide West

Robert Richardson, ASC helps resurrect the
Ultra Panavision 70 format for The Hateful Eight
A Mid-Century Affair
52
Ed Lachman, ASC captures forbidden love on

Super 16mm for Carol
Darkest Days
Checco Varese, ASC ventures underground to tell
the tale of The 33
Endgame
64
Jo Willems, ASC, SBC wraps a popular franchise

with The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2
DEPARTMENTS
10
12
14
22
92
100
101
102
103
108
110
111
112
Editors Note
Presidents Desk
Short Takes: ASC Gordon Willis Heritage Award winners
Production Slate: By the Sea Creed
New Products & Services
International Marketplace
Classified Ads
Ad Index
2015 AC Index
ASC Membership Roster
Clubhouse News
In Memoriam: Howard A. Anderson Jr., ASC
ASC Close-Up: Tom Hurwitz
VISIT WWW.THEASC.COM
78
Parallax View: Weekly Interviews with ASC Members

Crescenzo Notarile, ASC, AIC
on working with Delli Colli and Leone
Stephen Lighthill, ASC

on evolving technologies
Paul Sarossy, ASC, BSC, CSC

on cinematographers who direct
Javier Aguirresarobe, ASC, AEC

on the digital convulsion
James Bagdonas, ASC

on working with family
Terry Stacey, ASC
Photos from the ASC archives.
on formative experiences
www.theasc.com/site/blog/parallax-view/
D e c e m b e r
2 0 1 5
V o l .
9 6 ,
N o .
1 2
Visit us online at www.theasc.com
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF and PUBLISHER

Stephen Pizzello
EDITORIAL
MANAGING EDITOR Jon D. Witmer
ASSOCIATE EDITOR Andrew Fish
TECHNICAL EDITOR Christopher Probst
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Benjamin B, Douglas Bankston, John Calhoun, Mark Dillon, Michael Goldman, Simon Gray,
Jay Holben, Noah Kadner, Debra Kaufman, Jean Oppenheimer, Iain Stasukevich, Patricia Thomson
ART & DESIGN

CREATIVE DIRECTOR Marion Kramer
PHOTO EDITOR Kelly Brinker
ONLINE
MANAGING DIRECTOR Rachael K. Bosley
PODCASTS Jim Hemphill, Iain Stasukevich, Chase Yeremian
BLOGS
Benjamin B
John Bailey, ASC
David Heuring
WEB DEVELOPER Jon Stout
ADVERTISING
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SUBSCRIPTIONS, BOOKS & PRODUCTS

CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Saul Molina
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ASC EVENTS COORDINATOR Patricia Armacost
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ASC ACCOUNTING MANAGER Mila Basely
ASC ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE Nelson Sandoval
American Cinematographer (ISSN 0002-7928), established 1920 and in its 95th year of publication, is published monthly in Hollywood by
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American Society of Cinematographers

The ASC is not a labor union or a guild, but
an educational, cultural and professional
organization. Membership is by invitation
to those who are actively engaged as
directors of photography and have
demonstrated outstanding ability. ASC
membership has become one of the highest
honors that can be bestowed upon a
professional cinematographer a mark
of prestige and excellence.
OFFICERS - 2015/2016
Richard Crudo
President
Owen Roizman
Vice President
Kees van Oostrum

Vice President
Lowell Peterson
Vice President
Matthew Leonetti
Treasurer
Frederic Goodich
Secretary
Isidore Mankofsky
Sergeant-at-Arms
MEMBERS OF THE
BOARD
John Bailey
Bill Bennett
Richard Crudo
George Spiro Dibie
Richard Edlund
Fred Elmes
Michael Goi
Victor J. Kemper
Daryn Okada
Lowell Peterson
Robert Primes
Owen Roizman
Rodney Taylor
Kees van Oostrum
Haskell Wexler
ALTERNATES
Isidore Mankofsky
Karl Walter Lindenlaub
Kenneth Zunder
Francis Kenny
John C. Flinn III
MUSEUM CURATOR
Steve Gainer
8
The glories of the Ultra Panavision 70 film format

65mm anamorphic projected in 70mm for a super-wide
aspect ratio of 2.76:1 were last seen in the 1966 feature
Khartoum. Fans of widescreen cinema were stoked to hear
that Quentin Tarantino and cinematographer Robert
Richardson, ASC planned to revive this classic roadshow
format for their Western drama The Hateful Eight, and the
saga of how they managed the feat is truly epic.
The seeds were sown when Richardson and his
longtime 1st AC, Gregor Tavenner, met with ASC associate
Dan Sasaki, Panavisions vice president of optical engineering and lens strategy, at the companys headquarters.
There, they discovered a shelf of what Richardson
describes as some very unusual-looking lenses original, long-forgotten Ultra Panavision 70s that hadnt been
used in decades. Thats when the avalanche started, Sasaki recalls in Michael Goldmans
comprehensive coverage (Wide Wide West, page 36).
Saddling up for a modern project shot in Ultra Panavision 70 required an extraordinary
collaborative effort between the filmmakers and the companies servicing the show. In addition
to Panavision, key contributors included Kodak and FotoKem. None of it could have been
done without these great partners, says producer Shannon McIntosh.
Viewers eager to experience the full 70mm spectacle should seek out the roadshow
screenings complete with a program, musical overture and intermission that Tarantino will
present as a special two-week engagement limited to approximately 100 theaters. (A slightly
shorter digital-cinema version will then be released worldwide.)
Ed Lachman, ASC also sought a vintage look for Carol, his latest pairing with director
Todd Haynes. Based on Patricia Highsmiths novel The Price of Salt, this elegantly shot drama
takes place in 1940s New York a backdrop Lachman uses to enhance the storys themes.
Carols form of melodrama observes people from the outside, but situated in a world of naturalism, the cinematographer tells Iain Stasukevich (A Mid-Century Affair, page 52). The
camera moves with them, and even when its objective, were still trying to evoke their emotions
by shooting them through doors and windows and reflections, so that by seeing the characters
partially obscured, were expressing their dislocated and fragmented identities.
In The 33, ASC member Checco Varese and director Patricia Riggen dramatize an event
that was broadcast to the entire world: the rescue of 33 miners trapped underground after a
cave-in at the San Jos copper and gold mine outside Copiap, Chile. Its similar to the moon
landing in that everybody knows what the actual rescue effort looked like, Varese notes in a
piece by Jean Oppenheimer (Darkest Days, page 64). We had to be as accurate as possible
in every detail.
Jo Willems, ASC, SBC could take a bit more license with the apocalyptic sci-fi imagery
he created for the The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2, but he and director Francis
Lawrence also decided to let the movies heroine drive the drama. Its Katniss story, so we told
it from her perspective, Willems tells Mark Dillon (Endgame, page 78). There are some big
establishing shots, but on the whole the idea was to always stay with her. We just pared it down
to the essentials of her story.
10
Stephen Pizzello
Editor-in-Chief and Publisher
Photo by Owen Roizman, ASC.
Editors Note
A merry Christmas and happy Hanukkah to all!

This might be hard to believe, but every once in a while Im at a loss for a topic to shout
about in this column. Writing it is never hard; the process usually takes 20 minutes at most. But
after turning in close to 60 pieces over the years, choosing a subject has become a bit of a challenge. Film vs. digital 4K, 8K, 16K should we or shouldnt we what must we do or
what have we failed to do assuming youre as tired of the weather-worn tropes as I am, you
have to admit, it gets a little monotonous. Which is not to say that having an opinion or taking
a strong position on the issues of our day arent important priorities. They are, and I assure you
thats foremost on the minds of all of us at the ASC.
While trolling for material, it suddenly dawned on me how important the yearly Christmas break from school was to the filmic education some might say indoctrination of
so many people I know, especially those of us who matured during the last Golden Age of
studio production, the 1970s.
You might think that growing up within the confines of New York City would have
presented an endless array of opportunities to draw on for a kids cultural development, and it
did. The problem was that in our particular Brooklyn neighborhood and social stratum, my
friends and I never imagined taking full advantage of them. Instead of museums, theater or the
ballet (oh, that wouldve gone over well), sports were our major concern. Party lines were drawn according to team and player
preferences, and the intensity of some of the ensuing arguments and, yes, occasional fistfights stays with me to this
day. That we took it all so seriously seems hilarious now, though I also believe our adherence to those convictions helped us
develop worthy character traits for later in life.
Movies ran a tight second in our little world. Weather being what it is in the Northeast, there was a distinct uptick in
our cinema-going habits as the year wore down and conditions on the ball fields and schoolyards deteriorated. The neighborhood flea-pits single-plexes all, with huge screens and many hundreds of usually empty seats offered cheap and
easy refuge from the cold and rain. There were quite a few within walking distance or just a short bus ride away, and what
we saw onscreen was generally quite sophisticated, aimed at an adult sensibility, and completely atypical of what normally
interested us.
When Christmas vacation rolled around, we were more than ready to cram as many movies into the break as we
could, sometimes two or three per day. In other instances wed sit through several showings of the same picture. During that
era, films premiered at first-run houses in Manhattan and could take weeks or months to reach the outer boroughs. We
couldnt bear waiting for the good ones and would often hop on the subway to quench our curiosity. Over time we became
aware of a much different sort of material in the now-defunct revival houses: the British Kitchen Sink school, the French New
Wave, Italian Neorealism, even some great old studio films that never turned up on TV. Though our primary objective was to
have fun, we were starting to grow, unknowingly, and this advancement was often reflected in a slightly higher grade of
conversation on the way home. These were fabulous experiences, and the seeds planted then share a direct link to how Ive
come to write this column today.
Rather than limit myself to the huge stack of this years awards-season DVD screeners sitting on the TV stand, Ive
resolved to see as many of these films as I can in the way they were meant to be experienced: with an audience and on a
big screen. Theyll be no match for those road-trip screenings at the Bleecker Street Cinema, the Carnegie Hall Cinema or
the Thalia, but hey, what else are you supposed to do during the Christmas break? With any luck, the seasons new movies
will present a raft of new topics to write about in 2016!
Richard P. Crudo
ASC President
12
December 2015
American Cinematographer
Photo by Dana Phillip Ross.
Presidents Desk
Short Takes
Society Honors Heritage Award Recipients

By Debra Kaufman
The ASCs Gordon Willis Student Heritage Awards were

recently presented during a ceremony at the Societys Clubhouse in
Hollywood. This years awards recognized work in three categories:
For Documentary, Rob W. Scribner (Full Sail University) won for
Warbird Pilot: Behind the Visor; in the Graduate category, Steven
Holloway (American University) won for The Defeat (x3); and in the
Undergraduate category, Nicolas Aguilar (Chapman Universitys
Dodge College of Film and Media Arts) won for Run. To be eligible,
students must be enrolled in an undergraduate or graduate program
or have graduated within the past year.
Established to inspire the next generation of cinematographers, the ASC Student Heritage Awards are renamed annually in
memory of an extraordinary ASC member. This years honoree,
Gordon Willis, ASC, crafted bold, uncompromising images in collaboration with directors such as Francis Ford Coppola, Woody Allen
and Alan J. Pakula. Willis received two Academy Award nominations
for Allens Zelig and Coppolas The Godfather: Part III in addition to an honorary Oscar and the ASC Lifetime Achievement
Award.
Warbird Pilot: Behind the Visor
Director: Rob W. Scribner
Cinematographer: Rob W. Scribner
Rob Scribner, who started flying Cessna 150s at an early age
14
December 2015
and later served in the Air Force, melded his love of aircraft with his
passion for cinematography in this short documentary about
warbird pilot John-Curtiss JC Paul. Warbird pilots are volunteers
who maintain and fix legacy aircraft for places like the Warhawk Air
Museum in Nampa, Idaho; when Scribner who had been studying cinematography online with Full Sail University met Paul, he
knew hed found a story that needed to be told.
In the films most thrilling sequences, Scribner takes viewers
up in the air with Paul as the pilot takes these legacy aircraft through
pitches, rolls and acrobatic tricks. Scribner, already crammed into a
small space behind Paul, had to wear a full-face visor and oxygen
mask while he struggled to hold the camera above him to shoot. It
was hard, he says. Youre trying to focus, watch the histogram
and keep the framing right. And when we started pulling 3Gs, I had
to push the camera up with all my might.
Most of the project was shot with the Sony NEX-FS100,
Scribner says, but he also used a Canon EOS 7D and 60D, and some
GoPro Hero3 footage. I didnt have many lenses to work with, he
notes, mainly the 18-200mm [f3.5-6.3] Sony E-mount and a
20mm [f2.8] Sony E-mount, which worked great for fast shooting.
Scribner captured his interviews with Paul at 24p with the
FS100 fitted with the 18-200mm, the 7D with a Canon EF 50mm
prime, and the 60D with a Canon EF 18-135mm (f3.5-5.6) zoom.
The latter lens was also fitted to the 7D for time-lapse shots.
The FS100 was the A camera, which recorded to 64GB Sony
Memory Stick Duos and shot in AVCHD at 1080p. For this camera,
Scribner shot at 500 ISO for most of the shots, but during the
motorcycle sunset shots toward the end of the evening, when not
Awards photo by Alex Lopez. Warbird Pilot photo by Melissa Ann Scribner. The Defeat (x3) photo by Matthew Holloway.
Run photo by Al Stevens. Frame grabs and behind-the-scenes photos courtesy of the filmmakers.
From left:
Steven
Holloway, Rob
W. Scribner and
Nicolas Aguilar
were the
recipients of
this years ASC
Gordon Willis
Student
Heritage
Awards, which
were presented
during a
ceremony at
the Societys
Clubhouse in
Hollywood.
Top: Scribner
captured footage
while in flight
with John-Curtiss
Paul for the
documentary
short Warbird
Pilot: Behind the
Visor. Bottom:
Scribner lines up a
shot as his son
Gavin takes the
controls in the
cockpit and Paul
looks on.
film in Adobe Premiere Pro CC on his

MacBook Pro. The final deliverable was
1080p H.264 at 24p basically Webready, he says. My main goal for this film
was to get a Vimeo Staff Pick, which I did
right after releasing the film, so before I
started shooting I planned everything to be
delivered on the Web.
Basically, I had little to no budget to
make this film, so I had to use what was
available to me at that time of my life,
Scribner says. Scrappiness and focus saw
him through. No retakes, he notes about
the airborne shots. As long as I was
focused on what I was doing, I was okay.
pointed at the sunset, I had to kick it up to
3,200. He also used the FS100 for b-roll,
nearly all of which was shot at 60 fps to
create more emotion for the viewer, Scribner explains. On a few occasions he shot at
1080p and 60 fps with audio, in order to
capture the sound of the engines starting
up for use in post. Even though the
FS100s S&Q [mode] is a better quality, it has
no audio capabilities, he says.
For the time-lapse 7D work, the
camera recorded Raw to 8 and 64GB CF
cards, and the resolution was scaled down
to 1080p in post. Each time-lapse
sequence was set with 144 frames, so at 24
fps it would be a six-second duration in post
when put together, Scribner notes. I also
used .3, .6 and .9 Tiffen ND filters. I stacked
them together so I could expose the shot
longer to get that nice, streaky look when
things were moving in the shot. It was
about five-second exposures with about
seven-second intervals.
The 7D and 60D interview footage
were both shot in 1080p/24p. The 60D
16
December 2015
time-lapse footage was shot nearly identically to that of the 7D, other than the use of
16GB SD cards. Both Canon cameras shot
at 160 ISO for time-lapse footage and 320
ISO for interviews.
With the camera in motion throughout the film, Scribner made use of my
homemade slider that I built about five
years ago, he says. Its a very simple
design lightweight and easy to move
around in a hurry.
Scribners lighting package consisted
of five 500-watt Britek lights all 3,200K
and fitted with soft boxes one boom
stand, five daylight gels and one 100-watt
Britek cone light. For the interview, I used
an overhead 500-watt Britek light with a
soft box, and another 500-watt Britek way
back on camera right to help create a nice
rim light for the profile shot. In the background, he used two 500-watt units with
daylight gel to give more light and separation between Paul and the vintage P-51
Mustang.
Scribner edited and color-graded the
The Defeat (x3)

Director: Steven Holloway
Cinematographer:
Steven Holloway
While enrolled in a theory class for
his Master of Fine Arts degree at American
University, Steven Holloway and his classmates were assigned a team project related
to the class focus on different film genres.
Holloway took over sole creative authorship
of The Defeat (x3) when his teammate had
a work conflict and dropped out. The result
is a quirky and satisfying paean to three
distinctive film eras. In the scenario, two
men hunch over a board game; one of
them, briefly interrupted by a phone call,
finally throws the dice, makes his move, and
cackles with glee when he sees that hes
won. A cut then reveals that the winner is
in fact the losers daughter and the game
is Chutes and Ladders. The Defeat plays
that scenario three times, in three different
styles: German Expressionism, French New
Left: The winner (Dave Renken, left) and the dad (Art Kennedy) play a high-stakes game of Chutes and Ladders in this frame from The Defeat (x3).
Right: Holloway lines up a frame with a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera.
Wave and Film Noir.

It was one of those projects that
kept building into more and more, says
Holloway. I did a lot of visualization, especially when it came to emulating the different eras. I spent a lot of time researching the
mise-en-scne of each period, how people
dressed, how much audio was used or
perhaps not used, and a great deal of time
studying the lighting. He says he paid careful attention to knowing what camera
angles and focal lengths to use, and the
different types of lighting that would be
needed. Making those sorts of decisions
helped me better represent each particular
era.
The biggest challenge, he says, was
that he only had a single day to shoot. The
set and lighting needed to be significantly
and quickly changed between each
vignette, he says. To keep the production
moving, the set was prelit for each vignette
the day before. Sometimes relighting the
set was just a matter of turning lights off or
on, and blocking or unblocking windows.
Holloways lighting package
included an array of tungsten fixtures, such
as 650-watt Arri and 150-watt Dedolight
Fresnels with a small Chimera Pancake
Lantern soft box and a Colortran Ellipsoidal for the background shadow patterning, as well as ambient daylight. Holloway
says that Gordon Willis lighting particularly
influenced his work as a cinematographer.
I dont think there were many doing the
kind of toplighting he did at the time in The
Godfather, he says. His lighting inspired
me early on, and I was able to employ some
of those techniques in my film and still keep
18
December 2015
it true to the era.

Holloway shot with a Blackmagic
Pocket Cinema Camera, using Arri/Zeiss
Ultra 16 prime lenses, maintaining an ISO
setting of 400 and a shooting stop between
T1.3 and T2.0. He recorded to a Video
Devices Pix 240 in the ProRes HQ codec. He
shot in color but then, in postproduction,
desaturated the image to black-and-white
to fit all three eras. Shooting for black-andwhite made lighting easier and faster, says
Holloway. Dimmers could be used on
tungsten lights or mixed with daylight without having to be concerned about color
shifts or balancing the color of one light
source to another.
Similarly, shooting for black-andwhite made the Pocket Cinema Camera a
good choice, Holloway opines, because it
offers less IR protection than many other
cameras. This, I believe, enables the
camera to capture a broader tonal range by
filtering out less of the visible portion of the
red spectrum, he says. Without color, IR
contamination of the image is eliminated.
This, along with prelighting the sets, benefited the shoot and the final film, says
Holloway. It gave the production more
time to focus on the camerawork and the
actors performances.
Holloway edited the short himself on
Avid Media Composer. I graded the
finished picture in Final Cut Pro X, after
exporting it from Media Composer in the
native ProRes HQ codec, he says. I did so
because I determined that an FCPX export
would more closely match the graded
picture, and I wouldnt have problems with
the levels being raised or lowered while
making the H.264 deliverable.

Holloways daughter Brooklyn served
as makeup artist and costumer. Dave
Renken, who portrays the winner, gaffed;
both he and Art Kennedy (the dad) were
first-time actors. Bailey Parater, a friend of
Holloways daughter, played the girl.
Run
Director: Trevor Stevens
Cinematographer: Nicolas Aguilar
Nicolas Aguilar met Trevor Stevens in
a screenwriting class, and the two immediately felt a kinship. So it was natural for
Aguilar to shoot the senior thesis project
Run, directed and co-written by Stevens. The
gritty story begins with reluctant gang
member Marcus (Jordan Mosley), who has
always sheltered his younger brother Martell
(Erick Bowman), promising to take him away
from the neighborhood and gang life.
Marcus life intersects with that of Dean
(Heston Horwin), a young recruit with a rival
motorcycle gang known as the Riders Under
Naberius M.C. When RUN takes Marcus
captive, Dean is left to guard him. Marcus
convinces Dean to let him go, and the two
try to escape the warring gangs through a
nighttime industrial landscape.
Aguilar shot mainly with a Red Epic
Mysterium-X, recording 5K full frame at 8:1
compression to 240GB RedMag SSD cards,
but used a Canon EOS 5D Mark II for three
specific shots: the opening sequence on a
motorcycle, Marcus in a car with a gun, and
Martell drawing on Marcus arm. We put
Technicolors CineStyle color profile on the
5D Mark II and photographed half a stop
Top: Marcus
(Jordan Mosley,
right) tries to
shelter his younger
brother Martell
(Erick Bowman)
from their
neighborhood
gang life in Run.
Bottom: Aguilar
operates a Freefly
Systems Movi
M10 gimbal for a
scene with Marcus
and Dean (Heston
Horwin, on
the ground).
underexposed whenever we worked with

it, says Aguilar. We rated it at 320 and
640 ISO, depending on whether it was day
or night.
With the Epic, he used Arri/Zeiss
Ultra Prime 20mm and 24mm lenses as
well as a Rokinon Cine 24mm and a Zeiss
Planar 50mm for the Canon EOS 5D Mark
II. Perhaps 90 percent of the film was shot
with the 20mm, Aguilar reports. My
shooting stop was T1.9 most of the time in
night exteriors, while interiors were at
T2.8. Aguilar says he rated the Epic at ISO
800 and then let things go dark when
they needed to be. No lens filters were
used on the production.
My thought was to keep it
simple, Aguilar says, but stylistic enough
so the characters feel threatened and
chased. I wanted to close the gap between
the audience and the action as much as
possible thats why I chose wider lenses
and stuck basically to a single lens for the
whole picture. I wanted the audience to
have the ability to look around if they
wanted to, while allowing the actors to
really carry the action and emotion of every
moment. I wanted them to feel like Marcus:
slowly discovering the space and hoping
20
December 2015
not to make a wrong turn.

Aguilar operated for nearly the
entire movie, which was shot over six days,
most of it with the camera on a Freefly
Systems Movi M10 gimbal. But several
shots required multiple operators and
complex hand-offs. I set up a remote
control for the Movi so I could control the
frame as it passed from one operator to the
next, and I communicated with my operators over walkies, Aguilar explains. He
lists Pascal Combes-Knoke, Al Stevens, Rob
Sandberg and Matt Komorous as operators. He also credits 1st AC Jon Wang for
pulling off distances and always hitting the
mark.
The majority of the movie an estimated 85 percent was shot with practicals, but Aguilar nevertheless carried a relatively substantial lighting kit and worked
with two gaffers, Luka Pascalicchio and
Mike OKane. The kit included two Kino
Flos (a 2' four-bank and a 4' four-bank], one
Arri M18, an array of Mole-Richardson
units, and two Luminys Systems 1K
sodium-vapor lights and a 1K metal-halide
fixture. Aguilar also purchased about 20
household fixtures and 50 lightbulbs that
were carefully placed and controlled
through dimmers and sometimes gels.

When simulating or supplementing
practical streetlights and industrial work
lights, Aguilar notes, falloff was a creative
choice. At times we chose smaller units
closer to the talent, and other times larger
units farther away. Theres a sort of intimacy
when using smaller units.
Most challenging about the shoot,
says Aguilar, were the long sequences,
especially the second-to-last scene, a catand-mouse shootout with numerous
extras, in the dark, in and around vehicles,
which Aguilar shot with the Movi M10.
(Handheld was reserved only for the last
shot of the film.) I had to create a style and
cohesive voice visually so it doesnt look like
a bunch of kids chasing people around in
an action sequence, he says. These are
two men bonded by family and kinship. My
challenge was to put these characters in a
real-looking world and make the cinematography as invisible as possible.
The production was edited at Chapman University by Mackenzie Marlowe.
Company 3 colorist Bryan Smaller
performed the digital intermediate using
DaVinci Resolve. As the cinematographer
explains, We shot 5K, edited in 1080, and
finalized a deliverable in 1080.

To view Warbird Pilot: Behind the
Visor, visit vimeo.com/103092939. To
watch The Defeat (x3), visit
vimeo.com/91547188. Run can be viewed
at vimeo.com/123509259. For more about
the Student Heritage Awards ceremony,
visit
www.theasc.com/site/news/ascannounces-student-heritage-awardwinners/.
Production Slate
Reflections on a Marriage
By David E. Williams
In the 1970s-set romantic drama By the Sea, a despondent,

retired dancer named Vanessa (Angelina Jolie Pitt) and her writersblock-afflicted novelist husband, Roland (Brad Pitt), retreat to a
remote, sun-blasted Mediterranean hotel while he seeks inspiration.
Their marriage in tatters, and divided by a mysterious trauma, the
pair discover a strange sense of unity in a shared fascination with the
attractive, vivacious newlyweds occupying an adjoining room
(Mlanie Laurent and Melvil Poupaud).
Jolie Pitt also wrote and directed the feature, and in seeking
a visual collaborator, she reached out to cinematographer Christian
Berger, AAC, BVK. She had discovered the Austrian cinematographers work through watching the video A River of Light on YouTube;
Berger, in turn, was immediately attracted to her script, which arrived
with no writer or directors name attached. That was a bit of a
mystery at the time, he remembers with a laugh, but I was immediately taken with this story of interesting people and very human
issues. Thats what always draws me to a project.
Envisioning a style reminiscent of classic 70s European cinema
for the film, Jolie Pitt was incredibly well-prepared and focused,
says Berger. Angelina and Brad wanted to make a non-commercial
film. It was an opportunity for all of us to experiment and explore as
artists to create something delicate and special.
In a document she prepared for the films cast and crew, Jolie
Pitt notes, There is a freedom in not making a commercial film. You
can be bolder and experiment. It is emotionally more challenging
and creative. As an artist you want to be able to try things, and to
22
December 2015
avoid safe choices sometimes.

Berger suggested Jolie Pitt shoot By the Sea in 2.39:1
widescreen, in part to take advantage of the storys coastal settings,
horizons and landscapes. Berger elected to use Alexa XT Plus
cameras, recording in ArriRaw to internal Codex XR Capture Drives,
paired with Arri/Zeiss Master Primes plus an Arri/Fujinon Alura 45250mm (T2.6) zoom.
The cinematographer has used Arri Alexa models on many of
his past projects. I was initially drawn to the camera because I could
transfer my long experience with film cameras, and the image quality of the Alexa is also quite pleasing, he says.
For By the Sea, Berger says he chose not to work at higher
ISO settings than the standard 800 ASA, because he can sense the
electronic amplification of the image. He also feels one of the
greatest limitations of digital cine cameras is their lack of lower-sensitivity settings. I would switch to 400 for bright daylight, but that still
meant using thick ND filters. What is the point of the incredible quality of lenses we have today if we are forced to do that? Here the film
negative still has its advantages.
For the films interiors, though, the Alexas higher sensitivity
facilitated the relatively low-light, naturalistic approach Berger
employs via his Cine Reflect Lighting System, which grew out of his
painterly observations about the behavior of natural light. In the
natural world, all light comes from a single source the sun
which generates a multitude of reflections, creating all the complex
textures, tones and colors we see, says Berger, whose father was a
painter.
Frustrated with the equipment of the time, Berger began to
experiment with what would become the CRLS while shooting
By the Sea photos by Merrick Morton, SMPSP and Christian Berger, AAC, BVK, courtesy of Universal Pictures.
Married couple Vanessa (Angelina Jolie Pitt) and Roland (Brad Pitt) grapple with their troubled relationship in the feature By the Sea.
Top:
Cinematographer
Christian Berger,
AAC, BVKs crew
constructed a
lighting truss
over the seaside
hotel where the
films characters
vacation. Bottom:
The truss
accommodated
Bergers Cine
Reflect Lighting
System, which
includes 1.2K
parallel-beam
HMIs that can be
projected into
custom, precisely
engineered
reflectors.
director Michael Hanekes The Piano

Teacher (AC May 02), refined it in their
follow-up collaboration Cach (AC Jan. 06),
then continued its evolution while filming
Hanekes The White Ribbon (AC Jan 10), for
which Berger won an ASC Outstanding
Achievement Award and earned an Academy Award nomination, among other
honors.
The CRLS system comprises an
economical number of lamps 1.2K HMI
CRLS parallel beams and CRLS-adapted
Dedolights and a multitude of customdesigned, high-tech reflectors of various
24
December 2015
sizes and shapes, with textured and colored

surfaces. These reflectors are engineered for
precise light modulation and distribution,
enabling predictable and accurate results.
The CRLS lamps rarely illuminate the
subject directly. Instead, aimed at the reflectors, the beams are softened, shaped and
redirected exactly where intended, reducing
cumbersome spill light. Often, multiple
reflectors are dipped into a single beam,
producing a variety of effects. This also
allows for the creation of a key, backlight
and fill light from a single source, dispensing
the need for flags, cutters, scrims and gels.
With the high-efficiency system, a beam can

travel greater distances from lamp to
reflector to subject and keeping lamps
and the associated cabling and hardware
away from the set results in a cooler, less
cluttered work environment for cast and
crew.
Its rare we are able to light from any
great distance, due to stage or location
constraints, Berger says. But if I have 10
meters from my lamp to a CRLS reflector,
and then the light travels another 10 meters
to the subject, I effectively have 20 meters,
which improves the aesthetic of my light.
This creates an organic decline of
light intensity inside a room, the cinematographer continues. Thus the actor can
approach the window [without becoming]
overexposed. The quality of the shadows
and the shadow zones are correct; the
involvement of all the materials in the room
adds up. When one understands and
respects the natural ways of light, it can be
used to wonderful effects to create incredibly rich atmospheres. Light can flow and
work unimpeded. (More information
about the CRLS can be found at
www.thelightbridge.com.)
After a week of blocking in Los
Angeles, the By the Sea production relocated in September of 2014 to the secluded
Mgarr Ix-Xini on the Maltese island of Gozo.
Berger and Jolie

Pitt discuss a
scene. It is
always important
for me to create
the famous safe
space for actors
and directors, and
to keep the
technical dictate
as small as
possible, the
cinematographer
notes.
Settings included a practical hotel location

and seaside town sets devised by production designer Jon Hutman, who had
worked with Jolie Pitt on her two previous
directorial efforts, In the Land of Blood and
Honey (shot by Dean Semler, ASC, ACS)
and Unbroken (shot by Roger Deakins, ASC,
BSC; AC Jan. 15).
The most complex lighting situation
the film presented was the hotel, which
overlooks a scenic bay and sits precariously
on the edge of a rocky cliff high above the
azure waterline. Here, much of the action
would play out in the couples respective
rooms and balconies, requiring Berger to
produce a variety of daylight and nighttime
looks often shooting either night-for-day
or day-for-night in order to meet the
modest productions tight schedule. (For
night-for-night scenes, Berger and his crew
created moonlit seascapes over the entire
bay area by using only a few 1.2K HMI CRLS
parallel beams with reflectors to modulate
the lights shape and diffusion.)
Due to restrictions that prevented
rigging on the hotel itself, or on the abrupt
drop-off below the structures faade facing
the bay, gaffer Jakob Ballinger designed a
large, freestanding lighting truss over the
entire building. The truss incorporated four
12x6x2m overhead grid frames that could
26
December 2015
be independently extended or retracted by

motor drive; this simulated the position of
the sun as it passed overhead each day. On
these sections, Ballingers team also
mounted a series of 1x1m and 50x50cm
CRLS reflectors on articulated arms, as well
as separate sunlight-blocking sails.
On the narrow ledge of ground
between the hotel and the cliff edge, 10m
below the grid frames, a line of 10 CRLS
parallel lampheads were pointed up into the
reflectors, which redirected the modified
light to illuminate the hotel interior. While
the CRLS parallel beams remained almost
stationary, the angle and intensity of my
light could be quickly altered and fine-tuned
by adjusting the lightweight reflectors, says
Berger. We could modulate from soft to
hard light or change the light distribution
within a room.
This overall setup also meant we
could always maintain a completely free
view of the sea or the rocky hills through our
hotel windows, Berger explains. There
were no stands or cables to dodge or hide.
This was essential, as Angie wanted to
constantly feel the location and have the sea
and landscape visible beyond our foreground. It is always important for me to
create the famous safe space for actors
and directors, and to keep the technical
dictate as small as possible.

In their room, Vanessa and Roland
grapple with their shared grief, commitment to one another, and the later stages of
married love, and their emotions often
contrast with those of their amorous neighbors. They spend a lot of time watching
the other couple in an unconventional
manner, which was not naturally cinematic, Berger notes. It was a quite static
situation, but never boring.
Through the careful staging of the
action and with actors Laurent and
Poupaud often almost out of frame,
partially seen in a mirror, or positioned in
extreme foreground and background
the voyeuristic effect remains interesting
and believable. Berger used a 27mm lens to
shoot these scenes, resulting in a consistent
point-of-view effect that would have been
undermined by the use of different focal
lengths.
For a scene in which Roland and
Vanessa drive from a nearby restaurant
after a late night of dinner and dancing,
Berger went absolutely minimal for a headon two-shot of the couple. He simply
mounted sets of 30x30cm CRLS reflectors
to the process trailer, on which the couples
Citron convertible rode. The reflectors redirected the sodium-vapor streetlights from a
Right: The crew

strategically
placed CRLS
reflectors and
1.2K HMIs to
create moonlit
vistas.
Below: Berger
considers a
night-exterior
car scene, for
which he used
30x30cm CRLS
reflectors to
redirect the
locations
practical sodiumvapor
streetlights.
carefully chosen road, and Berger shot the

scene at 800 ISO with his 50mm Master
Prime set at T2.
It was the simplest solution and the
most effective, as the small amount of light
on their faces is in perfect sync with the
background, and keeps the night-street
atmosphere alive, Berger muses. As they
drive through light they brighten, and into
shadow they darken. I dislike the artificial
quality of conventional car-interior lighting.
Trying to coordinate with lamps and
dimmers to match reality is just impossible.
28
December 2015
Throughout the shoot, the cinematographer enthuses, my crew worked

as a precision team. I would be lost without
them: camera operator Gerald Helf, focus
puller Dieter Knestel, second camera and
Steadicam [operator] Robert Stopfer, [digital-imaging technician] Christian Wehrle,
with Emmanuel Aubry and Carlo Barber on
dolly and crane and, of course, gaffer
Jakob Ballinger and his team.
The digital grade was completed at
EFilm, where colorist Mitch Paulson graded
3414x2198 files in Autodesks Lustre 2015
for a final 2K output. Particular attention

was paid to the balance between exteriors
and interiors, and maintaining the largely
monochromatic palette Jolie Pitt sought.
She was very careful with colors, Berger
says. For instance, she used red to punctuate certain scenes, often on objects of
importance, such as Rolands portable typewriter.
This film was really an experiment
for Angelina as a director and an actor,
concludes Berger, who is grateful to have
collaborated on her passion project. It was
not only an opportunity to tell an interesting
story, but a playground for her, Brad and the
other actors to try different things. I hope to
believe that my way of handling the set
helped make that happen. While some cinematographers are seeking the biggest and
strongest lights possible, I believe less is
more. It frees the director and helps the cast
to focus on what they do best: great performances.
TECHNICAL SPECS
2.39:1
Digital Capture
Arri Alexa XT Plus
Arri/Zeiss Master Prime, Arri/Fujinon Alura
The Next Generation

By Neil Matsumoto
Having grossed more than a billion

dollars at the box office worldwide, the
Rocky saga is one of the most beloved and
successful film franchises of all time. The
series has so far focused on Rocky Balboa
(Sylvester Stallone), a down-and-out
Philadelphia boxer who becomes heavyweight champion of the world. Over the
course of six films, Rocky takes on all
comers including Mr. T, the Soviet Union
and even old age but any true Rocky fan
will tell you that his greatest rival was Apollo
Creed (Carl Weathers), with his trademark
stars-and-stripes boxing trunks and
Muhammad Ali swagger.
Decades after the release of the first
film in 1976, Stallone, now 69, returns to
his iconic role in director Ryan Cooglers
Creed. This latest chapter, however, focuses
on Apollos son, Adonis Johnson, who travels to Philly in the hopes that Rocky will train
him in his own quest for the title.
Fresh off the success of his first fulllength feature, Fruitvale Station (AC April
13) winner of the Grand Jury Prize and
the Audience Award for U.S. dramatic film
at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival
30
December 2015
Coogler sought to bring new life to the

Rocky series. Penned by Coogler and Aaron
Covington, Creed reunited the director with
Fruitvale Station star Michael B. Jordan, who
portrays Apollos tenacious offspring.
I was quite surprised that someone
with my credits would get a phone call for a
Rocky movie, reveals director of photography Maryse Alberti. Having shot such
projects as the indies Happiness and Velvet
Goldmine (AC Nov. 98), and the documentaries Crumb (AC July 95), Enron: The
Smartest Guys in the Room and Taxi to the
Dark Side, Alberti has not been known for
studio franchises. She says, though, that
Coogler was a fan of Darren Aronofskys
The Wrestler (AC Jan. 09) which Alberti
shot and he was looking for an indie
filmmaker. Hes very smart, very talented
and a great collaborator, she notes. And
as a human being, he has a great heart,
compassion and generosity. He gets a lot of
respect from everybody, and hes genuinely
interested in what everyone does. There
was a very nice atmosphere on the set.
The project also gave Alberti an even
clearer understanding of the series influence on popular culture, particularly when
the production shot at the steps of the
Philadelphia Museum of Art, adjacent to
which the bronze statue of the fictional

boxer still stands. Nearly 40 years after the
first Rocky, people are still running up the
stairs pumping their fists. The character has
[an indelible] persona, and people get very
excited and call out Rocky! when they see
Stallone.
Although the cinematographer is
not a fervent follower of the sport, she
admires a number of classic boxing movies.
Alberti reveals that she became more of a
fan after watching Floyd Mayweather on
HBOs 24/7, which she describes as a very
well-made documentary [series].
During prep for Creed, Coogler and
Alberti reviewed boxing scenes from a
number of Rocky movies, though their
biggest visual influence was Jacques Audiards 2009 feature, A Prophet (AC March
10). Alberti especially appreciated the
French films mix of Steadicam, handheld
and static shots, and how each choice of
technique was motivated by the story. We
decided that although Raging Bull is an
amazing film and the boxing sequences are
beautiful, it was not the way we wanted to
go, Alberti explains. I think Ryan wanted
the boxing to be more realistic and less stylized. The filmmakers also examined
Albertis handheld work on The Wrestler.
Creed photos by Barry Wetcher, SMPSP, courtesy of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, Warner Bros. Pictures and New Line Cinema.
In the feature
Creed, Adonis
Johnson (Michael
B. Jordan, left),
the son of
legendary boxer
Apollo Creed,
trains for his own
shot at the title
alongside his
fathers one-time
rival and later
friend, Rocky
Balboa (Sylvester
Stallone).
Left, top and bottom: A-camera/Steadicam operator

Benjamin Semanoff captures the action in front of a
mirror. Right: Cinematographer Maryse Alberti (right)
and director Ryan Coogler (left) check the frame
with Semanoff.
Ryans filmmaking style calls for a

very inquisitive and curious camera that
moves and searches, she says. Its not a
quiet and composed camera.
Alberti shot Creed primarily with an
Arri Alexa XT, capturing ArriRaw files to a
Codex Onboard S recorder. For lenses,
Alberti went with a full set of Cooke S4/i
primes, in addition to Angenieux Optimo
short zooms. I like the look of the
Cookes, says Alberti. At the beginning of
preproduction, Ryan and I had spoken
about and tested adding grain to the digital
image, and I knew grain is a little bit
rougher on skin tones, so I wanted a lens
that was already nice and soft. In the ring I
tried to keep a stop of T5.6 so we could
have both fighters in focus.
Alberti describes the films overall
32
December 2015
palette as grounded in realism, and her

biggest challenge was determining how to
capture boxing sequences in an original
way without veering from that reality. For
the first of the films two major boxing
scenes, Alberti captured two rounds in a
single shot with a Steadicam rig. Each
round was a movie round, Alberti
explains meaning it was a minute and a
half instead of the full three with a oneminute break between rounds. We did 12
takes, she says, each lasting four
minutes. I give much of the credit to my
Steadicam operator, Benjamin Semanoff,
who had to perform and remember the
complex choreography.
As Alberti notes, the motivation for
capturing two rounds in one shot was that
a boxer is completely alone when he
enters the ring. He doesnt have teammates

and nobody is there to support him.
Boxing is a particularly improvisational sport that plays out a unique narrative
in every round, making it a challenge to
choreograph and film. There is always a
fine line between being there with the
camera at the right moment seeing the
movement and the glove connecting with
the face and preserving the human
drama, says Alberti. I had a very good
collaboration with the fight coordinator,
Clayton J. Barber [aiming] for the camera
to be in the right place at the right time for
the most impact. And I always wanted to
come back and have the drama of the face
looking into the camera.
The final fight was shot on a stage
surrounded by 600' of greenscreen. To
bring an actor through the ropes, we used a
Movi with the [Alexa] M camera, which was
operated by Ben Bloodwell, who passed it
through the ropes to the legendary operator
Larry McConkey, Alberti says. The other
time we used the Movi was for circling the
fighters in and out of the ring as they were
against the ropes. For the rest of the fight
Left: Alberti (far right) and crew set the lights for one of the movies boxing rings. Right: For the final fight, the production shot on
a stage surrounded by greenscreen.
we had one camera on the Technocrane,

one camera on Steadicam, and two cameras
that were handheld.
Upon discussing all that went into
capturing these scenes, Alberti acknowledges the great support of my gaffer, Eric
Boncher, as well as my key grip, Jon Sibert. I
also want to credit B-camera operator J.R.
Campbell he did a great job.
Shot entirely in Philadelphia, Creed
begins in Mexico, transitions to Los Angeles,
then moves to Philadelphia, where much of
the story takes place. We decided to play
[the scenes set in] Philadelphia as a little bit
cooler, Alberti says. The real challenge from
a color perspective, however, was the
difference in skin tone between Sly and
Mike, she notes. Not so much the density
as the color Sly being more red and Mike
being more yellow.
Alberti adhered to the doctrine of
realism for her lighting as well. For the two
big fights, Boncher worked with Philadelphia-based lighting designer John Duncan
Jr. The rings in Creed looked more HBO
than Raging Bull, Alberti notes, and were lit
from a truss circling the perimeter with 120
Par cans narrow-focused across the ring,
medium-focused in the middle, and widefocused up close, which gave a very even
lighting all across the ring, the cinematographer says.
For the gyms, Alberti used a mixture
of HMIs, tungstens and Kino Flo fluorescent
tubes, opting to replace the existing fluores34
December 2015
cent fixtures. If you stay with [the existing]

practicals, they tend to flicker a lot, so we
changed to movie tubes, she explains. In
one very old gym, although we changed all
the ballasts, things were flickering on and
off and we realized that the electricity
coming into this old building was [surging],
so we had to reroute everything to our
generator. Alberti also added a bit of
smoke for atmosphere in the gym scenes,
and introduced different colors with her
fluorescents, including yellow and green.
For non-fighting scenes, Alberti had
a full range of Arri HMIs on hand from
400-watt to 18K units. She also made use of
LiteGear LiteRibbons, which she hid around
the sets for subtle fill.
Creeds DI was performed at EFilm by
colorist Tim Stipan, with whom the cinematographer had previously worked on
several movies, including The Wrestler.
Tim, who did a great job, worked on
DaVinci Resolve, Alberti says. The color
grade was performed in 2K for a 2K DCP
final deliverable.
Thanks to the dailies LUT that Alberti
designed with digital-imaging technician
Michael Kowalczyk, the main color work
was just a matter of improving upon the
dailies, along with some touch-up work to
Stallones and Jordans skin tones. Thats
where the Alexa is good; it has a lot of range
in terms of color, says Alberti. But in the
world of digital, red is the color that is
going to [be picked] up first, so I try to be
aware of that.
In revitalizing the longstanding franchise, this latest installment introduces new
characters as well as new storytellers. Ryan
really infused a new life into the Rocky
movies with a brand-new style of filmmaking, concludes Alberti. Stallone was smart
to see the talent in this young director and
what he could bring to the film.
TECHNICAL SPECS
2.39:1
Digital Capture
Arri Alexa XT, M
Cooke S4/i, Angenieux Optimo
ERRATUM
In our coverage of Critical in the October
2015 issue, the bottom photo on page 30
shows 2nd-unit cinematographer Nic
Lawson behind the camera not 1st-unit
director of photography Tim Palmer, BSC,
as indicated in the caption.
WideWide
West
Robert Richardson, ASC helps

Quentin Tarantino revive, shoot and
present a classic 70mm format for
The Hateful Eight.
By Michael Goldman
|
36
December 2015
uentin Tarantinos crew is reconfiguring the set of

Minnies Haberdashery, which has been transferred
from a location in Colorado to a bone-cold soundstage
at Red Studios Hollywood artificially chilled to 30
Fahrenheit and 80% humidity to make the casts
exhaled breaths visible. Snug in a parka thats been pinned
with a sheriff s badge, the director cheerfully greets visitors
from American Cinematographer to the set of The Hateful Eight
with a hearty, Welcome to our super film set!
Unit photography by Andrew Cooper, SMPSP, courtesy of The Weinstein Co.
He and cinematographer Robert

Richardson, ASC proceed to discuss
how their team managed to pull off
shooting the entire movie in a
widescreen film format not used in
almost 50 years. The director refers to
Ultra Panavision 70, with its 2.76:1
aspect ratio, as the widest format there
is, outside of three-screen Cinerama.
As Tarantino explains, he fell
madly in love with Ultra Panavision 70,
which during its heyday was responsible
for giving the world just 10 features,
including Ben-Hur and Mutiny on the
Bounty. The last Ultra Panavision 70
feature, Khartoum, debuted in 1966,
when the more financially feasible
anamorphic 35mm had already entered
the fray. Richardson adds that the format
works beautifully for intimate close-ups,
and lauds its ability to capture the landscape of the human face.
Cameras soon roll as Samuel L.
Jacksons character, Major Marquis
Warren, sets upon Bruce Derns General
Sandy Smithers with a slow-burn,
progressively indecorous monologue,
during which Warren takes great relish
in telling Sanders a sadistic story thats
certain to provoke the older man.
Some weeks later, as the movie
nears completion, Tarantino, Richardson
and a handful of their colleagues discuss
their Hateful Eight adventures in more
detail. The film is Tarantinos second
Western, following Django Unchained
(AC Jan. 13); the plot concerns eight
Opposite: During
a blizzard in
post-Civil War
Wyoming,
bounty hunter
John Ruth (Kurt
Russell, left) and
his fugitive Daisy
Domergue
(Jennifer Jason
Leigh) encounter
six strangers,
including
Confederate
General Sandy
Smithers (Bruce
Dern), in the
feature The
Hateful Eight.
This page, top:
Director Quentin
Tarantino
(left) and
cinematographer
Robert
Richardson, ASC
operate on a rare
two-camera shot.
Middle: The
camera rigged
for the Ultra
Panavision 70
format. Bottom:
65mm raw-stock
cans next to the
vintage slate.
strangers holed up in a cabin in the

Colorado mountains in the middle of a
blinding snowstorm, with hate, revenge
and betrayal on their minds. The movies
launch is being produced, packaged and
www.theasc.com
sold as a roadshow event, beginning its

life exclusively as a 70mm film presentation including a program, musical
overture and intermission in a special
two-week engagement limited to
December 2015
37
Wide Wide West

approximately 100 theaters. The plan is
designed to hearken back to the
romantic days of cinema, explains
producer Shannon McIntosh.
A digital-cinema version, slightly
shorter in length and without all the
bells and whistles, will subsequently go
out in wide release to the rest of the
world, but Tarantinos virtually singular
goal from day one has been to make a
splash with a high-profile, large-format,
projected-film extravaganza. Foreseeing
the inevitable uphill battle for studio
approval, he sold the large-format idea
to the Weinstein Co. based on the
notion that while exhibiting the movie
might be a complicated and costly affair
involving the retrofitting of 100 or so
digital theaters across the country he
could make the movie good enough and
cost-efficient enough that we could
end up [recouping] a third of our budget
and paying for the operating expenses in
just two weeks in 100 theaters. (See
sidebar on page 46 for more about the
roadshow presentation.)
I thought maybe I could shoot it
in a format that would demand that
they release it on film, Tarantino
continues. If [the studio] is going to
spend the money to shoot on 70mm,
theyd want some sort of bang for their
buck. So I figured wed propose the big
roadshow thing and see where we were
after that. But then, the weird part was
that I felt maybe we could show that
70mm wasnt a lost cause. The excitement of the whole thing is that we
might have accidentally bumped into a
really good idea the saving of film
[for theatrical exhibition].
Assuming they would shoot
70mm in the spherical format,
Tarantino and Richardson asked
Panavision to show them various
options. Fate intervened last summer,
however, when Richardson and his 1st
AC, Gregor Tavenner, met with the
companys vice president of optical
engineering and lens strategy, ASC
associate Dan Sasaki, and made a
discovery that turned the project on its
ear. Deep in the bowels of Panavisions
headquarters in Woodland Hills, Calif.,
Top: Richardson
operates from a
GF-16 crane on an
elevated track.
Middle: Three
translucent black
20'x30' frames
rigged on fourwheel-drive Gradalls
tame the bright,
high-elevation
sunshine. Bottom:
Three crewmembers,
stacked as the
corpses of the Van
Hootin gang, are
dressed with snow
as the productions
tracks are erased.
38
December 2015
Richardson discovered a shelf of what

he calls some very unusual-looking
lenses, which turned out to be original,
long-forgotten Ultra Panavision 70s.
They had not been used in decades. The
cinematographer was instantly enamored.
Thats when the avalanche
started, Sasaki says. At Richardsons
request, Sasaki clamped one of the old,
heavy lenses to his projection bench and
imaged it at 10'. As Sasaki recalls, Bobs
and Gregors eyes went wide when they
looked at the nice warmth and the
organic roll-off.
I made the decision then,
Richardson says. He makes it clear,
however, that the initial undertaking
was in essence a feasibility study as he
continued to develop a spherical backup
plan. Success in rejuvenating the Ultras
was far from guaranteed.
A protocol was arranged whereby
Sasakis team would restore enough of
the lenses for Richardson to go to
Colorado and test them. If Richardson
felt comfortable with the results, he
would show the footage to Tarantino.
As it happened, the cinematographer
was more than pleased; he was ecstatic.
And so, with assurances from
Panavision that they could make the
lenses work with modern Panaflex
System 65 Studio and High Speed
(HS) Spinning Mirror Reflex cameras,
and Tavenners confidence that he could
pull focus with the optics, the filmmakers committed themselves to producing
Top: The heated

camera is protected
with a clear plastic
bag during the
stagecoach-arrival
scene. Middle: The
crew readies the
lighting for the
tented stagecoach
trailer. Two 12K Arri
Pars reflect off of
bleached muslin
frames to lift the
light inside the
stagecoach closer to
the exterior light
level. Bottom: As
the crew films the
interior, the
stagecoach is towed
on a lowboy trailer.
www.theasc.com
December 2015
39
Another Vintage Tool
ltra Panavision 70 lenses were

not the only technology literally
pulled out of mothballs in order to
make The Hateful Eight. To meet
director Quentin Tarantinos demand
for 70mm print dailies, the production faced a dilemma regarding how
to efficiently add Fostex DV40
audio-sync playback during dailies
production at FotoKem. After a
lengthy search, producer Shannon
McIntosh located a decommissioned
70mm Officine Prevost Milano
flatbed editing table that was
wrapped in cellophane and stored in a
warehouse of the Academy of
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
FotoKem technicians determined
that they could, with some significant
effort, modify the machine which
had been donated to the Academy by
the now-defunct Boss Film Studios
to enable it to physically sync
audio tracks with picture for the film
dailies.
According to Vince Roth,
FotoKems 70mm technical director,
although the Prevost was intact, it
needed a complete overhaul to fit the
projects needs. The work on restor-
40
December 2015
ing the unit was performed by Roth,

projection technician Cal Orr and
audio technician Brad Johnson. It had
been adapted previously to a different
drive system, Roth explains. Initially,
we thought we would have to buy a
whole new controller for the synchro
motor, but then our projection engineer
came up with a brilliant idea to put in
what is called a bridge rectifier
[circuitry to convert AC to DC output]
and then a big potentiometer a voltage control system. Then we had to tear
the entire thing apart and clean every
single roller everything on it and
do some rewiring for the [new voltage].
We adjusted the lamps, cleaned everything, checked the drive system, fixed a
large control knob, and added an
encoder for DV40 that would output
time code for that sound system. But it
was worth the effort, because it has
excellent resolution better than
current 70mm [editing tables] I have
seen with a really nice prism block.
By a miracle, we made it work.
Michael Goldman
Wide Wide West
the 11th Ultra Panavision 70 movie

the first since 1966.
Over the course of three different
test runs, Richardson and Tarantino
learned not only about the lenses, but
about the durability and functionality
of the camera systems and the quality of
the film stock, and also the viability of
the processing chain, Tavenner notes.
Our laboratory, FotoKem, was in top
form, because they have been developing and printing 70mm Imax film for
years.
The commitment to the Ultra
Panavision 70 lenses, however, led to
layers of other complications, as
Sasaki puts it. Central to the equation,
of course, was Panavisions lens-modification project. The endeavor involved
first getting two focal lengths to work,
Sasaki adds. The mounts had to be
modified and we had to change the
spherical components to clear the
camera. In an attempt to get those
[initial] lenses to move, we were soaking
them in chemicals.
We were worried they would
disintegrate when we took them down
to their base components, he continues, but fortunately, back then, they
made everything out of brass,
aluminum and steel, so they were basically bulletproof and we got them to
work mechanically. We found suitable
primes, readjusted them, made new
mounts, and sure enough, they actually
worked.
Through the course of the modification process, coatings, cylinders and
all sorts of mechanical components
were fixed, adjusted or completely
replaced. A few focal lengths did have to
be built from scratch with newer glass,
in cases where the older glass was
irreparably damaged or those focal
lengths did not exist in the Ultra 70 era.
But for the vast majority of the lenses,
Richardson says, the essence of the
Ultras was not changed. We asked Dan
to not alter the prisms because the sheer
joy was that the nature of those lenses
cant be duplicated with other pieces of
glass.
I really didnt need any diffusion
Wide Wide West
An Alpha 18K
bounces off a
bleached-muslincovered frame
as John and
Daisy enter
Minnies
Haberdashery.
with these lenses, he adds. There was

no purpose putting anything in front of
them other than NDs or 81 EFs for
exterior work.
The production carried a wide
range of focal lengths, with our widest
lens being 35mm, Tavenner states.
We did some close-ups on a 50mm
that were just glorious, and some on a
200mm that were equally so. Id say we
had a good range between 40mm and
135mm, with 50mm, 75mm and
100mm serving as our workhorse focal
lengths.
As the only remaining laboratory
in the world capable of processing
65mm/70mm film, FotoKem was
uniquely situated to take charge of
processing the productions 65mm
42
December 2015
negative, printing 70mm-film dailies,

and conducting the final photochemical color-timing work.
The company used its 65mm
Millennium telecine and a custom color
pipeline, which incorporated their
proprietary nextLab and Cineviewer
systems, to provide digital dailies to
editorial that emulated 70mm print
film. Those digital dailies also served as
a location-reference-matching tool for
Richardson while he worked onstage in
Los Angeles.
In terms of shooting 65mm, we
had the infrastructure, explains
Andrew Oran, vice president of operations for FotoKems large-format division. For shooting 65mm on a large
scale and coming up with a pipeline to
emulate film [for the DCP version], we

needed some refinement to make sure
that it was perfect. We had worked in
Ultra Panavision 70 twice before,
because we created new HD masters for
Khartoum and Its a Mad, Mad, Mad,
Mad World. So we knew the format, and
wed done 70mm prints on those titles
as well. But we obviously hadnt done an
Ultra Panavision show from scratch.
The 2.76:1 aspect ratio was not
a challenge for us, Oran continues.
With the right lens, it does it itself on
the projector, and the same tools we
have in digital to produce dailies that
unsqueeze a Scope image work to
unsqueeze an Ultra Panavision image.
Kodak, meanwhile, provided
reams of four different Kodak Vision3
65mm stocks: 500T 5219, 250D 5207,
200T 5213 and 50D 5203. The
company made the 5219 in longer
2,000' and 1,800' rolls, as compared to
the standard 1,000' rolls, so that
Tarantino could film long-running
dialogue scenes. That in turn necessitated Panavisions creation of three
customized 2,000' 65mm magazines.
The 1,800' rolls were ultimately deemed
the most efficient, and were the
preferred option for the production.
Since producing this special order,
Kodak has added the longer rolls to its
standard offerings.
Panavision provided special oversized matte boxes and sunshades
designed to accommodate the extrawide format. The company also collaborated with Schneider Optics to design
and produce 100 Ultra Panavision
projection lenses which would ultimately be needed for the roadshow
theaters across the country in addition to a specially designed print lens for
the eventual film-print master.
None of it could have been done
without these great partners, McIntosh
relates. We were doing 70mm, but
didnt have a giant, luxurious wallet, and
yet they were good about [tackling the
projects] that allowed us to apply
Quentins vision. Panavision didnt just
do rentals they took equipment out
of deep storage and brought it back to
Wide Wide West
Top: The crew

readies a scene
inside Minnies
Haberdashery.
Bottom:
Richardson
takes a lightlevel reading
as Tarantino
discusses a
scene with
actor Tim Roth.
life. Quentin likes great dialogue scenes,

and they are not short, so if we can print
2,000' loads, why cant we shoot 2,000'
loads? Those kinds of things were
instrumental.
The 91-day shoot captured all
exteriors at Schmid Ranch on Wilson
Mesa, Colo., near Telluride. It was there
that production designer Yohei Taneda
and crew built the Minnies
Haberdashery cabin, a barn and an
outhouse. Landscapes for horse and
stagecoach sequences were shot nearby.
Richardson estimates that 60 to 75
percent of the interior material was shot
on location, as well.
Colorist Yvan Lucas collaborated
with lab timers Dan Muscarella and
44
December 2015
Kristen Zimmerman on FotoKems

print dailies, which were screened on
location in Telluride at a small theater
that was specially configured for the
project, with a larger screen and 70mm
film projector. When the production
was in Los Angeles, dailies were
screened in a retrofitted viewing area
that FotoKem created for both dailies
and release-print approval. FotoKem
also set up a 70mm projector at Red
Studios for interim viewing with the
crew. Lucas also supervised the final
color grade.
Tarantino says he studied Its a
Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (shot by
Ernest Laszlo, ASC) to understand
how multiple lead characters could be
framed on such wide lenses in the

cramped quarters of an interior like the
haberdashery. Both he and Richardson
insist the complications were worth it. I
think this format works well in a oneroom situation, because you can really
utilize the stage and make it a thing,
creating a complete level of intimacy,
Tarantino says. And if you have eight or
nine characters all trapped in one room,
while Im watching the people in the
foreground where the scene is going on,
Im also seeing other people in the background. Im always able to keep tabs on
the characters in an almost theatricalblocking sense.
Richardson worked exclusively
with a crane and dolly, using no
Steadicam or handheld techniques.
Minnies Haberdashery was essentially
divided into sections a bar area,
corner-table area, dining area, kitchen,
fireplace and front room and both
camera and lighting had to travel and
adapt to the different spaces while
capturing all manner of action and
dramatic confrontations, which were
shot nearly entirely in-sequence.
Quentin has very specific ideas
about where the camera goes, says
Richardson, and he made sure the
movie was extraordinarily wellrehearsed in terms of positioning the
characters inside the room. There was
one moment when we had to do a little
adjusting with lenses and camera to
remove someone from a background so
that you would not know where everyone was in the room. We altered
perspective by choosing a longer lens
and a slightly different angle.
As gaffer Ian Kincaid notes, when
shooting with wide lenses on the tight
set, a close-up is more like a medium
shot, in the sense that with the width of
those lenses, you see nearly half the set
no matter where the person is within
it, unless they are up against a wall. That
meant we had to see a lot of territory, and
we therefore had to illuminate a lot more
than we would for normal coverage. We
were constantly dancing around that
room, sometimes maybe three or four
rounds in a day.
Reviving Ultra Panavision 70
rojects like The Hateful

Eight are what we at
Panavision relish, says ASC
associate
Bob
Harvey,
Panavisions executive vice president of global sales and marketing. We listened to the
filmmakers desires and needs and
did our best to honor their vision.
[Panavisions vice president of
optical engineering and lens strategy] Dan Sasaki led an entire
team from technical to manufacturing to make this happen. Dan
redesigned a set of 65mm
anamorphic lenses to bring this
format into the 21st century.
When Quentin [Tarantino] and
Bob [Richardson, ASC] talked
about long takes, our engineers,
led by John Rodriguez, rapidly
designed and manufactured
2,000-foot magazines for 65mm
film.
The Hateful Eight was shot
with Ultra Panavision 70 lenses
on 65mm negative, and transferred to 70mm prints for projection. (The
extra 5mm print width was used in the
past for sound tracks). As illustrated, Ultra
Panavision optics create a mild 1.25
anamorphic squeeze of the 2.20:1 image
area, which is three times the area of
35mm anamorphic. The projected image
has an ultra-wide 2.76:1 aspect ratio.
As Sasaki explains, Ultra
Panavision lenses were first used in 1957
with non-reflex 65mm cameras. Some of
the lenses used on The Hateful Eight had
to be reworked to clear the mirror shutters
of the modern Panaflex System 65 Studio
and High Speed (HS) Spinning Mirror
Reflex cameras, which were also fitted
with new motors, electronics and heaters,
as well as an improved reflex viewing
system.
Sasaki provided the filmmakers
with 15 Ultra Panavision lenses, with
eight focal lengths ranging from 35mm to
400mm. Some lenses were simply refur-
46
December 2015
bished, some were recoated, and some had

their spherical components swapped,
while others the 40mm, 50mm,
135mm, 180mm and 190mm were
brand-new builds.
We kept as much of the vintage
optics as we could, says Sasaki. The
older lenses are not perfect, but they arent
soft, either they offer a unique quality
in between. For the new builds, we would
degrade the optics by changing the air
gaps of the lens to induce circle aberrations, matching the visual theme of the
older optics.
Sasaki explains that circle aberrations in the Ultra lenses create a gentle
focus roll-off, a gradual blurring that tends
to blend things, and enhances visual depth
cues. Its like shading the drawing of a flat
circle to make it look like a sphere.
Artistically, he describes the resulting
image as having a uniquely dappled,
impressionistic look.
Producer Shannon McIntosh

notes that the Weinstein Co.
hired Chapin Cutler, principal
and co-founder of Boston Light
& Sound, to help prepare 100
movie theaters for a Hateful Eight
national opening that will
present the film in its native
Ultra Panavision 70mm format.
McIntosh states that Cutler was
brought on board before we
shot one frame of film, to allow
sufficient time to source and
prepare all the needed equipment.
The yearlong project involved
purchasing and upgrading 120
used 70mm projectors ensuring the availability of spares.
Cutler expected that about 90
percent of the theaters running
the film would require a full
installation that would include
platters, bulbs, splicers and audio
DTS playback. The process has
been mammoth. Every projector
has been stripped down, put back
together again, and put through tests. We
replaced the bearings, gears, drive systems
and motors. We retrofitted and rebuilt the
lamp houses. We tried to make this
Murphy-proof.
The production commissioned
Schneider Optics to design and manufacture 100 projection lenses for the short
throws of multiplexes, and purchased used
lenses for the longer distances of older
theaters. Cutler explains that they chose to
use large 2K or 3K xenon bulbs to get
more light spread on the big 70mm
rectangle, adding that the roadshow
lenses will be stopped down to f2.8 or f3.2
to increase depth of focus.
Benjamin B
Special thanks to Michael Goldman, who
contributed to this report. For more coverage
on Ultra Panavision 70, visit
www.theasc.com/site/blog/thefilmbook.
Wide Wide West
Top, from left:

Leigh, Russell,
executive
producer
Richard
Gladstein,
Dern and
actor Walton
Goggins
discuss a
scene. Bottom:
First AC Gregor
Tavenner
(bottom right)
assists
Richardson
with the GF-16.
Richardson notes that the set also

had a low ceiling, and emphasizes that
the lenses would handicap my ability to
put lights where I would ordinarily want
them.
We did hard-gel the windows to
try to keep them matching from shot to
shot, he adds. That wasnt always the
easiest thing, but as the weather
changed so radically with cloud cover
blowing in and out, we would have [key
grip] Herb Ault and his [crew] moving
rapidly to put gels up in the windows as
we needed them.
Options were easier on the L.A.
stage, thanks to its removable posts,
48
December 2015
beams, walls and ceiling sections. For

the stage and the Colorado location,
Kincaids team built identical overhead
lighting rigs that consisted of six 6K soft
boxes and strands of household bulbs
stapled between the ceiling rafters and
covered with bleached muslin. Fifty
300-watt Teflon-wrapped bulbs and six
of our 6K soft boxes provided a beautiful, warm and quiet glow, Kincaid says.
These rigs frequently had to
come down if they couldnt be
disguised for low-angle shots that
included the ceiling. For this reason,
Kincaid explains, LEDs played a central
role in maintaining the appropriate
ambience for Minnies Haberdashery.

We built 4-foot-long LiteGear
LiteRibbon strips, [which were] about 4
inches wide, and crammed as many
LEDs as we could into various small
spaces both tungsten- and daylightbalanced ones, the gaffer says. The
haberdashery is constructed of beams,
so we hid them behind upright horizontal beams, and often used them in
wider shots because traditional motionpicture lights would have been [visible
in the frame]. LEDs were also used in
the traveling-stagecoach sequences.
Exteriors were a constant challenge given the remote location, snow
on the ground, shifting skies, and the
unique format. We couldnt get
Condors to the location with the snow
so deep, so we had to use [Gradall and
Pettibone telescopic construction forklifts] to lift equipment, and they were
our shadow-makers [on and around the
cabin], Kincaid says. Whenever there
was sunlight hitting the windows, Herb
Ault would run one of those vehicles
out to put a big shadow around the
cabin.
For night exteriors, Kincaid says
the production relied on two large
moon boxes each containing 16 6K
space lights and filtered through a Full
Blue Grid Cloth which the filmmakers used for a gentle overhead
ambience. These units were suspended
from large construction cranes around
the cabin structure, as needed.
Besides Minnies Haberdashery,
the only other significant interior was
the stagecoach, where many of the characters first meet each other early in the
story. The production used both a practical stagecoach as well as a stagecoach
rig on a gimbal system designed by Ault
and stunt driver/vehicle designer Allan
Padelford. The latter set was necessary
to accommodate the actors, operator
and oversized camera, while maintaining the width necessary for both front
and side angles.
The [rig] had removable sides,
and the camera was positioned outside
the coach on its own gimbal, matching
the coachs movements, Ault details.
This enabled us to get wide enough for

the 70mm anamorphic format. Of
course, this needed to be tented to
control the bright sunshine. We then
shot through oversized hard gels to
obtain balance, while bouncing light
inside the coach.
Throughout
production,
Tavenner was charged with keeping the
lenses safe and warm a key responsibility, as The Hateful Eight was using the
only known workable set in the entire
world. Indeed, the 1st AC helped
design the optics heated cases; he also
traveled back and forth to Panavision
several times to get individual focal
lengths repaired or tweaked by Sasaki,
on a one- to two-day turnaround, when
occasional problems arose.
These lenses were a giant leap of
faith, Tavenner says. We were taking
lenses that had not been out of the
warehouse in 40 years up into the
mountains of Telluride at 10,000 feet in
wintertime. I had no clear idea how they
would respond. We kept them within
certain temperature ranges so that the
expansion-contraction variables were
minimized.
The focus-pulling challenge was
as complex as any Tavenner had ever
dealt with. It just came down to getting
to know each lens and its physicality
and mechanical adaptations, he says,
to understand the quality of each
particular lens so I could make it work
during shooting. Each lens had its own
individual configuration demanding
certain mobility on set to achieve the
same speed as modern systems. When
you get to know a lens and once you
get it calibrated to where you know it is
focusing where you want it to focus
then it is just a matter of keeping that
system functioning that way for a 100day show.
In fact, everyone on the filmmaking team had to adjust their preferred
ways of doing certain things in order to
get maximum value out of the Ultras.
Tarantino and Richardson, for example,
had to revise shots due to the fact that
the Panavision Ultra 70 system did not
include zoom lenses. Forgoing zooms
was his biggest loss, Tarantino says,

but he feels the sacrifice was more than
worth it. I had gotten really comfortable and really facile using a zoom lens,
he says. Then we didnt have it. But
after a while, I kind of looked at it as a
good thing. Maybe I had been too facile
with the zoom. Maybe I had gotten too
comfortable with it. So I started looking
at it as a neat thing a fun challenge.
We also didnt use any
Steadicam, Tarantino continues. But

we had [already been moving away
from] Steadicam before this film. For
one thing, the Steadicam is too modern
to use for a Western, but also, Bob has
been steering me toward the use of the
crane more and more. He loves the
crane, and we used it a lot on Inglourious
Basterds [AC Sept. 09] and Django
Unchained. But here we went even
further, to the point where we basically
Wide Wide West
O.B. Jackson (James Parks) stumbles through a nighttime storm scene lit by two 30'x40' moon
boxes. Backlight HMIs and 20'x30' soft boxes on Gradalls provide the background glow.
used the crane like it was a dolly.

Richardson adds that there are
always solutions for every change in
method or style. Without a zoom, he
explains, we did camera moves instead
such as crane moves. We would start

at the same spot and crane to where the
move was supposed to be. One of those
shots is an early shot on Jesus Road
near the opening titles where there is
a statue on the road. We didnt need a

fast zoom, but something that could
creep us out from a closer position, and
we solved it with that move. [Tarantino]
didnt want snap zooms in this film,
anyway he didnt want that style. But
there are lots of small creeps, which we
did with a dolly.
Other issues involved things like
sometimes flaring the lens in an overcast way, to the point where the contrast
was no longer working, Richardson
adds. When I saw that in a couple
takes, I wondered if we would have to
increase contrast in printing, or push
[the negative in processing]. I ended up
pushing a fair portion of this movie by a
half stop to increase the level of contrast
in the lenses.
At press time, the 70mm answer
print for The Hateful Eight was being
prepared at FotoKem, with Lucas working in partnership with Muscarella. I
work in the lab with the timer on the
answer prints, and we take notes shot by
shot about the corrections we want to

make, Lucas explains. Then, in a few
days, we see the reprint. We work roll by
roll, so we watch 10 minutes at a time,
instead of the traditional DI where you
can make changes instantly. Here, you
dont see results until a few days later.
But the DI [for the digital
release] will also be different since it
needs to match [the film print], he
continues. I supervise the answer print
for the film release first, and then I will
finish the DI at my new facility [Shed in
Santa Monica]. I will work with a new
[FilmLight] Baselight Two [color
corrector] and a Christie 4K projector
projecting onto a 26-foot screen, but we
have also installed a 70mm projector to
screen the [film] print any time, in order
to make sure the digital version retains
the look and contrast of the film. This
will not be a traditional DI, because we
wont be making any [power windows].
The whole idea is to stay as close to the
print as we possibly can.
With production of The Hateful

Eight behind him, would Tarantino, in
retrospect, have liked a crack at the
Panavision Ultra 70 lenses on earlier
projects like Reservoir Dogs (AC Nov.
92) which also featured an ensemble
cast packed into a claustrophobic, single
set for extended scenes? I wouldnt
have been ready to shoot that movie
with these lenses, he says. It was my
first movie! That was challenge enough.
But having said that, people did question back then why I was shooting
Reservoir Dogs in Scope, and for almost
the same reasons.
TECHNICAL SPECS
2.76:1
Anamorphic 65mm
Panavision Panaflex System
65 Studio, High Speed (HS)
Spinning Mirror Reflex
Ultra Panavision 70
Kodak Vision3 500T 5219,
250D 5207, 200T 5213,
50D 5203
Digital Intermediate
51
Mid-Century
Affair
Ed Lachman, ASC and director Todd Haynes craft natural ambience

for the period melodrama Carol.
By Iain Stasukevich
|
52
December 2015
Unit photography by Wilson Webb, courtesy of The Weinstein Co. Additional photos by Ed Lachman, ASC.
Department-store
clerk Therese
(Rooney Mara,
opposite) falls for
the title character
(Cate Blanchett,
this page, top), an
unhappily married
older woman, in
the 1940s-era
melodrama Carol.
Below:
Cinematographer
Ed Lachman, ASC
lines up the
productions
Arriflex 416
camera.
hot by Ed Lachman, ASC and

directed by Todd Haynes, Carol is
adapted from Patricia Highsmiths
novel The Price of Salt, which was
written in 1949 under the pseudonym Clare Morgan and published in
1952. Highsmiths reputation is largely
based on her crime fiction, and at first
glance, Carol seems to break with that
tradition.
To me, it does line up with all of
her classic work because the traditional
Highsmith stories Strangers on a
Train and The Talented Mr. Ripley
[go inside] the subjectivity of the criminal mind, writes Haynes in an interview with Lachman, who in turn points
out that Carol is still a crime [story].
The crime is their love for each other.
Carol s setting is New York in the
late 1940s. The winter holidays are
coming, and a young, introverted
department-store employee named
Therese (played by Rooney Mara) is
smitten with an unhappily married
older woman, the eponymous Carol
(Cate Blanchett). They become
emotionally involved, but with Carols
husband Harge (Kyle Chandler) determined to save his marriage at any cost,
the two women are forced to take their
love on the lam.
Carol is Lachmans fourth collaboration with Haynes, after two features

Far From Heaven (AC Dec. 02) and Im
Not There (AC Nov. 07) and the
HBO miniseries Mildred Pierce (AC
April 11). Todd is highly visual, though
our conversations are usually more about
the approach to the image, rather than
what the image will be, finding it
[instead] on the set, says Lachman. A
deep trust has developed between the
director and cinematographer over the
course of their 13-year collaboration.
Even when we disagree, the result is
something better than what either of us
had first conceived, Lachman adds.
Lachman and Haynes began to
www.theasc.com
visualize Carol by studying the works of

past masters of melodrama, such as
George Stevens A Place in the Sun
(photographed by William C. Mellor,
ASC), for its strong narrative language
and use of point of view, and
Michelangelo Antonionis La Notte and
LEclisse (both photographed by Gianni
Di Venanzo), for their use of abstraction
and spatial relationships to enter the
characters minds.
Like Far From Heaven, Carol
references life in mid-20th-century
America, but with their latest collaboration, the filmmakers made a deliberate
choice to avoid referencing the highgloss studio melodramas of the late 50s.
December 2015
53
Right: Therese
rides in a taxi
during a
rainstorm.
Below: Lachman
and his crew
rigged
fluorescent units
to complement
the practicals in
the department
stores staff
cafeteria.
Lachman notes, Melodrama is a film

style that observes social forces
confronting peoples lives, [a genre] in
which youre watching relatively ordinary people suffer under forces of social
mores that theyre not able to overcome,
confront or change. In the films of
Douglas Sirk, there is mannerism in the
performances, and theres artifice in the
studio lighting and color and camera
movement. Its a description of a
picture-perfect world that could be, but
is never allowed.
Carol s form of melodrama
54
December 2015
observes people from the outside,

but situated in a world of naturalism,
the cinematographer continues. The
camera moves with [the characters],
and even when its objective, were still
trying to evoke their emotions by shooting them through doors and windows
and reflections, so that by seeing the
characters partially obscured, were
attempting to express their dislocated
and fragmented identities.
Haynes collected his thoughts on
this subject in a preproduction e-mail to
Lachman that the director titled Flung
Out of Space: Thoughts on a Visual

Criteria for Carol. Haynes writes, The
film needs eyes and fingers to be more
instructive than aggressive angles, moves
or lighting. [The camera] should move
with characters, adjust and reframe with
intention but motivated by visual directives, which can make a camera feel
both organic and suturing. Most shots
in Sugarland Express have stillness,
panning or zooming and movement, in
some combination or succession, but
they rarely feel boastful.
Carol s opening shot leads the
audience directly into an encounter
between Carol and Therese. We fade up
on a sidewalk grate. The camera rises
and tilts up to follow the commuters
feet coming out of a nearby subway
station, then picks up its subject a
well-dressed man and follows him to
the other side of the street, where he
purchases a newspaper, then around a
corner, and finally booms up on a 30'
telescoping crane as he enters the highend hotel where we meet our protagonists for the first time, seated together at
a table in the restaurant. There begins
the films expression of amorous subjectivity by constantly shifting the perspective between the two lovers.
In a departure from the book,
Left: Gelled
lights boost the
ambience for a
bar scene
between
Therese and
Dannie (John
Magaro). Below:
Carol and
Therese meet
for lunch.
Therese no longer decorates department-store windows but instead develops an interest in still photography.
Haynes and Lachman used this conceit
to map Thereses emotional development. Her early photos are abstract
snapshots of urban landscapes and inert
objects; when she photographs herself
or other people, her subjects are in
shadow or reflected. As her affair with
Carol develops, Therese is able to take
photos outside of herself, of her lover
Carol, and she begins to embrace her
life more fully.
Thereses early photos were in
fact shot in the 1960s by Ohio-based

photographer Brian Blauser, and her
later work was shot by set photographer
Wilson Webb. The filmmakers wanted
Thereses photos to share the same
sensitivity and gritty realism found in
the work of mid-20th-century female
photographers like Lisette Model,
Berenice Abbott, Ruth Orkin, Esther
Bubley, Helen Levitt and Vivian Maier.
Haynes writes, Women played a much
more relevant, central role in depicting
and documenting those times, but it
also wavered between art photography
like many of their careers did and
www.theasc.com
photojournalism. And so it was both

artistic and aestheticized. The director
also notes, The soft, soiled look of
period photography (rather than its
cinema) should both soften and soil the
emotional content of [Carol s] story.
Lachman adds, Our approach to
the look was to incorporate a subjective
viewpoint of the amorous mind the
mind of someone falling in love, when
you read every sign and symbol of the
other person. [To support] the
emotional content of the story, we
rejected the high-gloss, 1950s, Douglas
Sirkian world of melodrama in favor of
December 2015
55
Right: Carol and

her husband,
Harge (Kyle
Chandler), sit
through a meal
with Harges
parents. Below:
Camera operator
Craig Haagensen
(top) and
Lachman ready a
scene with Mara.
the soiled and muted color palette of

1940s color still photography. We also
revisited Saul Leiter, whose photographs
and paintings we first used as a reference
for Mildred Pierce for creating layered
compositions, [with] subjects that are
obscured by abstractions and seen in
reflections and partially visible space. By
using Leiters approach, we were not
56
December 2015
only creating a representational view of

the world, but a psychological one,
which we used to help represent the
amorous mind.
Lachman and Haynes briefly
discussed filming Carol on 2-perf 35mm
film, but based on their experience
shooting Mildred Pierce on Super
16mm, they opted for the latter format
and a final aspect ratio of 1.85:1. We
wanted to reference film stocks of a
previous time period, Lachman
explains. Their grain structure and
color separation were different than that
in the digital photography of today,
which is pixel-fixated on one plane. The
grain structure in film, and its movement, is affected by exposure: finer grain
in highlights, larger in low light. That
cant be represented digitally, even if you
add digital grain later.
From a qualitative perspective, its
films ability to capture light on separate
layers of emulsion that Lachman says
brings a depth to his work that cant be
reached by any digital sensor. The color
separation in film, affected by gels and
color temperature, responds differently
than in digital media, he explains. The
RGB layers in film, though microscopic,
create a sense of depth of color in the
image that I find lacking in digital
photography. As an analogy, when you

look at a painting, youre affected by the
brush strokes sense of depth and how
the colors interact, but in a photograph of
a painting you lose that sense of depth.
A combination of Kodak Vision3
color negative stocks was used: 500T
7219, 250D 7207, 200T 7213 and 50D
7203. Lachman continues to be enthusiastic about shooting on film, citing it as
his preferred format. Its me, my light
meter, lenses and the processing that
control everything, he remarks. He lit
most of Carol at or around T2.8, with
shadow detail 2 to 3 stops below 18percent gray, and highlights within 2
stops over.
Carol was filmed with two
Arriflex 416s, but with 35mm-format
lenses. Lachmans kit included a Cooke
20-60mm Varopanchro zoom (T3.1),
an Angenieux Optimo 25-250mm
zoom (T3.5), an Arri/Zeiss Master
Zoom 16.5-110mm (T2.6), and his
personal set of Cooke S2 Speed
Panchros. (A Cooke Super 16mmformat 10-30mm Varopanchro zoom
[T1.6] was also part of the package.) I
chose Speed Panchros primarily because
the falloff on the edges of the optics
lends the image a portrait-like feeling
and also that wouldve been similar to
Top, left and right:

China balls were
regularly used to
illuminate
interiors with
Therese and Carol.
Bottom: For night
scenes in cars,
gaffer John
DeBlau and his
crew rigged 250watt bulbs on
wooden battens
attached to a
speed-rail frame
that was placed
on the process
trailer.
the glass used during that era, the cinematographer notes. My preference is
not to use any diffusion on Super 16.
Besides, I was often filming through
windows and reflections, which became
my diffusion.
Combining the two formats
meant the filmmakers could take
advantage of Super 16mms increased
depth of field for a comparable field of
view relative to 35mm film, as well as
58
December 2015
using the center of the spherical 35mmformat lenses where the performance of
the lens is optimal. Also, Lachman
notes, the markings on 35mm lenses
are easier for the assistant to use. The
result is a vivid and tactile image, with
an almost three-dimensional sense of
texture, and when seen on a large
screen, the grain structure has a strong
impressionistic quality.
Principal photography was
conducted entirely on location in and

around Cincinnati, Ohio. Much of the
architecture in Cincinnati still references
that time period, which was great for
us, says Lachman, highlighting another
contrast between this film and Far From
Heaven, in which we were creating a
studio-back-lot world, a world of artifice, in real locations. In Carol we
wanted to play off of the existing environment to create a naturalism in that
period of time.
In collaborating with his longtime gaffer, John DeBlau, Lachman
worked with the environments, implementing what existed in order to establish a form of naturalism. The first step
was often to start with the backgrounds
and then work toward the camera, especially for the films night exteriors.
How we light the environment
determines how we will light the
actors, says DeBlau. I think I do it that
way because when I started out as an
electrician, I was always down the block
with the lights. Another thing Ive
learned is that if you light the actors
Lachman worked with China balls (top), bounced light (middle) and practicals (bottom) for
Carol and Thereses encounter in a high-end hotels restaurant.
60
December 2015
first, the director, producers or AD think

youre ready to shoot when you might
need another hour to work.
Day exteriors were generally
filmed without the assistance of artificial
light; instead, a 12'x12' or 8'x8'
Ultrabounce or muslin was used to
balance the exposure. For the interiors,
special care had to be taken to preserve
the privately owned and often historical
locations, so Lachman employed light
sources such as 30" 2K China balls and
covered wagons with 150-watt and 250watt incandescent bulbs diffused with
muslin or 1000H vellum. They make
beautiful light for womens faces,
Lachman notes. The lights were either
hung from rigging overhead or hidden
on the floor out of frame.
When possible, the cinematographer keyed the actors from the side or
slightly behind so that their faces fell into
shadow on the camera side, and he
always placed the lights in such a way as
to accentuate whatever practical sources
were found in the scene. I wanted it to
feel like the characters were source-lit by
the space, like the light was coming from
a small table lamp or a large window,
where I would place a light outside
through diffusion and CTB to create a
wintry feel, he says.
In larger interior locations, such as
hotels or Thereses department store, key
grip James McMillans crew was able to
rig a lighting grid using tensioners or
hidden legs for the lightweight China
balls. When a light couldnt be hung or
hidden, 750-watt Source Fours and 2K
Blondes were bounced off ceilings and
walls; the grip department then shaped
the bounced light with flags and a thin,
black plastic picnic-table cloth,
McMillan details. It weighs nothing,
and because its so thin it doesnt
completely block out all the light, which
softens the falloff at the edges of your
teaser and gives you a nice, smooth grade
on the walls.
The rest of the lighting package
consisted of tungsten Nine-lights, 5Ks
and 2Ks, and daylight-balanced 12K and
18K HMIs. Lachman also made use of
5K and 12K tungsten Pars, which feature
a horizontally mounted bulb focused by a

parabolic lens. A 5,600K dichroic parabolic lens, used with the tungsten T-Pars,
often cooled the ambient light for the
mixed light of day interiors. The T-Pars
worked in areas where we could bounce
off ceilings in rooms from the street
many floors below us because of its
intensity, creating the ambient light in
the room from the exterior, the cinematographer explains.
The filmmakers regularly used
color on their lights. Lachman picked
gels that echoed the green, magenta, and
warm and cool hues of early Kodak
Ektachrome color still film: Fluorescent
Green, Lee Green, Plus Green, Minus
Green, Pale Lavender, Special Lavender,
CTO, CTS, Pale Amber Gold and
CTB.
The department store where
Therese works and first meets Carol was
lit with practical fluorescent fixtures overhead, and Plus Green and Pale Amber
Gold gel was applied to the lighting of
the tungsten display cases. The resulting
effect is soft and flattering to the faces of
the actors, even if theres noticeable green
from the fluorescents.
Intermingling color temperatures
is a signature of Lachmans cinematographic style, and one that DeBlau
knows well. As the gaffer explains, practical lamps factor into many of the films
daylight-dominant interiors as long as
our warm light wasnt any brighter than
what would be considered naturalistic.
Sometimes Ed will use a CTO for the
outside lamps to cut the metallic look and
bring them more in the range of 4,300
degrees, and sometimes well add
CTO inside if were bouncing a Par,
Redhead or Blonde, just so long as youre
adding the same corrections to both interiors and exteriors so their relationship
stays the same.
Cars play a central role in Carol s
claustrophobic world. For a scene with
Therese in the back of a taxi on a rainy
night, a scene in the Lincoln Tunnel, and
Carol and Thereses road trip for the
winter holidays, there was talk early on
about whether we would do poor-mans
process, DeBlau recalls. However,
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Cast and crew prepare to shoot the films final scene.
Haynes opted for the reality of shooting

in actual locations, despite the sometimes bitterly cold conditions.
For the Lincoln Tunnel sequence,
with Carol driving and Therese in the
front passenger seat, the filmmakers
found a small tunnel in Cincinnati.
62
DeBlau and his crew then rigged two

dozen 250-watt bulbs on a piece of
wooden batten attached to a 12' length
of speed rail; the bulbs were run
through separate dimmers, and Cool
White fluorescents were run above the
tungsten lights to simulate the color
temperature inside the actual Lincoln

Tunnel. DeBlau adapted this rig to work
on both the drivers and passengers side
of the process trailer. During takes,
DeBlau manned the dimmers while electricians on the trailer panned 1K Fresnels
back and forth to simulate headlights
sweeping across the road, and a 1K
muslin China ball was hung from a boom
arm and spun around over the picture car
to simulate streetlights passing by.
As if the frigid weather wasnt
enough of a challenge, camera operator
Craig Haagensen was tasked with tracking dolly shots while the process truck
navigated traffic. Doubling as dolly grip,
McMillan found a way to keep the dolly
mobile while dampening the inertia of
the vehicles momentum. He started by
screwing 16' of track to the wing of the
process trailer. He then secured a rope to
the rear of a Fisher 10 dolly, ran it back to
a pulley at the end of the track, then
forward under the dolly to a pulley at the
front of the track, then all the way to a
second pulley at the back, forward once

more to a second pulley at the front, and
tied it to the front of the dolly with a
Flying Dutchman knot, which allowed
him to adjust the tension in the rope.
Instead of 2 pounds of force to move
the dolly, it takes 8 or 16 or more, and
now we can get those sexy, slow tracking
shots that you see in the movie,
McMillan describes.
Carol was the last show to
develop negative with Tony Landano at
Film Lab New York. The digital intermediate was performed at Goldcrest in
New York City, where colorist John
Dowdell worked with Quantel Rio to
grade 10-bit log DPX files. Lachman
notes, Todd and I had a 35mm print
struck for festival screenings, because
were still impressed by the look of film
being projected.
In the DI, the cinematographer
tuned his work to further reflect a
world coming out of the early color
period of the late 1940s and early
1950s, he comments. By playing with

color temperatures and the saturation of
color gels in the original photography,
we diminished some of the saturation to
mute the colors in the palette of early
Ektachrome.
Carol is a film about embracing
love and defining ones life while discovering the language to communicate, a
story about two people striving for
happiness under seemingly impossible
circumstances, made by a group of filmmakers who have, over their years
together, developed their own language.
The point is not lost on Lachman.
Filmmaking has always been a collaboration, he remarks. Todd is always
very specific about what hes looking for,
but he allows the trust and freedom to
discover it. I feel the same way with my
crew. John, Jim and Craig Ive
worked with these talented artists for
almost 35 years, and I share with them
the results of my images.
TECHNICAL SPECS
1.85:1
Super 16mm
Arriflex 416
Kodak Vision3 500T 7219,
250D 7207, 200T 7213,
50D 7203
Cooke S2 Speed Panchro,
Varopanchro;
Angenieux Optimo;
Arri/Zeiss Master Zoom
Digital Intermediate
63
Darkest
Days
Checco Varese, ASC and director

Patricia Riggen venture far below
ground to lend authenticity to the
real-life tale of The 33.
By Jean Oppenheimer
|
64
December 2015
Unit photography by Douglas Kirkland, SMPSP and Beatrice Aguirre, courtesy of Alcon Entertainment and Warner Bros. Pictures. Additional photos by Alex Henning, courtesy of Magnopus.
n Oct. 13, 2010, a global audience of more than one billion

people watched the televised
rescue of 33 miners who had
been trapped underground for 69 days
following a cave-in at the San Jos
copper and gold mine outside
Copiap, Chile. Broadcast live, the
rescue marked the culmination of a
nearly 10-week effort by geologists,
engineering and mining experts,
NASA, the Chilean government, and
dozens of multi-national corporations
to find and extricate the men, who were
buried 2,300' beneath the Atacama
Desert. The miners 32 Chileans and
one Bolivian became known around
the world as The 33.
Its similar to the moon landing
in that everybody knows what the
actual rescue effort looked like, so we
had to be as accurate as possible in
every detail, says cinematographer
Checco Varese, ASC, who was behind
the camera for the storys feature adaptation, The 33, based on the book Deep
Down Dark by Hctor Tobar. Varese
and director Patricia Riggen who
also happen to be married therefore
decided to shoot in practical mines
rather than re-create the environment
on a soundstage. There was no particular advantage to being on a stage,
Varese told AC in a series of in-person
interviews at his home in Los Angeles.
I wasnt going to cut a hole in the
Opposite and this page, top: Disaster strikes when a gold and copper mine in Chile caves in, trapping
33 miners for 69 days in the real-life tale of The 33. Bottom: Cinematographer Checco Varese, ASC
(center, pointing) and director Patricia Riggen (right) plan a scene.
ceiling and hang a light, because there

was no light in the actual mine
except for headlamps and flashlights.
Furthermore, a stage would severely
limit the amount of space we had to
work in.
Indeed, The 33 was shot in two of
the most extreme natural environments
imaginable: Chiles Atacama Desert,
where most of the films exteriors were
set; and in two underground mines in
www.theasc.com
Colombia that contained no natural

light whatsoever. Filming began in
Colombia in December 2013 and
continued for three weeks. After a short
Christmas break, the production shot
another three weeks in Colombia before
relocating for a six-week shoot in Chile.
The larger of the Colombian
mines was in Zipaquir; the vast salt
mine comprises 9 miles of winding
tunnels connecting multiple subterDecember 2015
65
Darkest Days
The crew films the miners being trucked into the mine before the collapse.
ranean levels. The majority of the cavein was staged inside the Zipaquir mine.
Almost everything else involving the
trapped men was shot in the smaller
Nemocn salt mine, which provided the
main living space, where the men slept,
ate and waited to be found; the
Refuge, where provisions were stored;
and the underground portion of the
eventual rescue when, one by one, the
miners stepped into the Phoenix rescue
capsule and rode up to the surface. (The
aboveground continuation of this
sequence, where each man steps out of
the cylindrical pod and is greeted by his
66
December 2015
family, was shot in Chile and staged

10 miles from the actual site.)
Every character in the movie is
based on a real person although some
are composites and whenever possible, real names are used. Antonio
Banderas portrays Mario Seplveda,
who acted as spokesman for the group
during the long ordeal; Lou Diamond
Phillips plays shift supervisor Luis
Urza; and Rodrigo Santoro portrays
Chilean Minister of Mining Laurence
Golborne, who coordinated the massive
rescue operation.
A former news and documentary
cameraman who spent the first half of

his career alternating between National
Geographic specials and covering wars
for such outlets as CNN, NBC and
BBC, the Peruvian-born Varese was
accustomed to hazardous working
conditions, but being half a mile
beneath the Earths surface, listening to
the constant heaving and rumbling of
the shifting ground and having only
one exit route out of the mine could
still be more than a bit unnerving. One
morning we arrived to find that half of
the entrance to the room where we
stored our grip equipment had
collapsed, the cinematographer recalls.
Another day, one of the mine-safety
advisers who always accompanied us
suddenly announced, Everybody evacuate!
During prep, Riggen had asked
Varese to suggest a classic artist as a
visual reference for the film. The first
painter I thought of was Goya, but I
quickly decided he was too dark, Varese
notes. His emphasis is very much on
suffering, madness and tragedy, whereas
The 33 is about hope and faith [in the
midst of hardship and distress]. Then I
thought of Caravaggio, who favors
strong, one-directional light but still
allows the background to fall into black.
His canvases became our model for
below-the-ground [scenes].
By contrast, aboveground scenes
at the burgeoning Camp Hope
where the miners families maintain a
constant vigil, a steady stream of workers come and go, and the media circus
pitches its tent were very colorful.
The filmmakers key influence for these
exteriors was the work of ace National
Geographic
photographer
Steve
McCurry, especially his pictures of
Middle Eastern street markets. Not
surprisingly, day exteriors relied upon
natural light.
The incremental growth of
Camp Hope throughout the film
consisted of five set designs. It was all
precisely orchestrated from the beginning, Varese explains. The first setup
was simply a pristine desert landscape.
In the second, set a week later, people
were camping in their cars, hoping for

the rescue of their relatives, he says. A
week later, 30 relatives are surrounded
by journalists and press 150 people.
Eventually, drillers, engineers, military
and security arrived. Thats when it
really became Camp Hope, with over
2,500 people. It was a shantytown that
was built progressively every weekend
by our crew. The army literally came
and set up a camp and police and
locals, too to serve as extras and recreate what happened.
For night exteriors, we lit the
hills with 18K HMIs, Varese continues. We also relied heavily on the practicals at Camp Hope. We had a
100-watt bulb in each tent, all on
dimmers, and the general areas were lit
with more industrial sources like
mercury and sodium vapors. The
common areas, such as the kitchen and
the school, had more of a Cool White
fluorescent feel. Overall, it gave the feeling of a small town. We had four or five
sodium-vapor highway lights, which
we used to light the perimeter of the
camp. We kept generators hidden
underground, out of sight.
The 33 was shot primarily using
Arri Alexa XT cameras mounted with
Angenieux Optimo zooms. I like the
way the Alexa works with blacks and
skin tones, and in very low light levels,
explains Varese. As for the choice of
lenses, I wanted the movie to be a bit
Top: This photo by visual-effects supervisor Alex Henning illustrates the different color
temperatures Varese used on opposing tunnel walls so that you always know which direction
you are going, Varese explains. Middle: The crew prepares to shoot inside the sprawling mine.
Bottom: Greenscreens were hung on the rock walls to accommodate visual effects.
www.theasc.com
December 2015
67
Darkest Days
Top: Hennings
panoramic photo
reveals the area
where the miners
take refuge
following the
collapse. Bottom:
Steadicam
operator Matas
Mesa trains an
Arri Alexa XT on
Antonio Banderas,
who portrays
Mario Seplveda.
more dreamlike and cinma vrit, with

an almost documentary feel. We stuck
primarily with zooms because they gave
a feeling of being down there with the
miners. The lens package included one
15-40mm (T2.6); one 17-80mm
(T2.2), mainly for use on the
Technocrane; two 28-76mm (T2.6), for
handheld and Steadicam; and two 24290mm (T2.8); in addition to a smattering of Arri/Zeiss Ultra Primes and
Cooke S4s.
Varese operated the A camera
throughout the shoot. Matas Mesa
served as both B-camera and Steadicam
operator in the mines, and Roberto
Contreras assumed B-camera duties
aboveground in Chile. Luis Lattanzi,
who served as 1st AC in both locations,
notes, We shot 1,280 ASA inside the
mines and 800 ASA on exterior scenes.
68
December 2015
The cameras recorded ArriRaw to

internal Codex XR Capture Drives.
As Varese explains, the film
begins with a conventional look, which
transitions abruptly to a stark contrast in
tone and pacing. It was two juxtaposed
languages, the cinematographer says.
The directors vision was to contrast
the constantly ticking clock of the
aboveground [rescue effort] with the
quiet and motionless world of the
miners, where there was no sense of
time, and they were just waiting, maybe
to die.
Aboveground scenes were
captured entirely handheld, while
belowground scenes were shot exclusively with stabilized cameras. Nearly all
of the underground footage was
captured with two cameras one on
Steadicam and the other generally on a
slider or tripod with a third often

employed on the Technocrane, which
Varese enlisted in lieu of laying dolly
track across the uneven terrain. Only in
the Refuge, where the grips had
installed a wooden floor, could track be
easily laid. The Technocrane had to be
hand-carried in pieces into Nemocn,
which had no vehicle access, Varese
notes.
One of the thorniest issues facing
Varese and his longtime gaffer David
Lee was how to light the interior of the
mines. There is no electricity in real
mines, perhaps because laying cable
would be prohibitively expensive, says
Varese. And there wasnt adequate
ventilation to safely run generators; the
fumes would kill everybody. Instead,
miners rely on rechargeable units such
as flashlights and headlamps.
However, it was clear that the
filmmakers would need to supplement
these sources with movie lights. The
production had no alternative but to lay
cable, the cinematographer notes. But
laying 1 miles of it inside Zipaquir,
and placing transformers every 400' or
so, was an arduous, time-consuming
task that took electrical crews three
weeks to complete, working in shifts,
seven days a week. We had to cable as
if it was a small town, Varese says. The
cables were hooked up to an underground high-voltage substation that
shared its power with the nearby town.
The electric crew worked in
almost total darkness for much of that
time, adds Lee. Hanging hundreds of
Darkest Days
Top: Hennings photo of the Camp Hope set at dusk. Middle: The crew shoots a scene at the
camp. Bottom: Mara Segovia (Juliette Binoche) holds out hope for the miners.
70
December 2015
feet of heavy mains cable with ladders

and flashlights it was physically and
psychologically grueling. Nemocn
proved somewhat less problematic, as
the first set was only 350' inside the
mouth of the tunnel and a generator
could be placed just outside the
entrance. But there were other sets
much deeper into the mine, Lee notes.
As in Zipaquir, we still had to run a
huge amount of cable, much of it at 440
volts to compensate for line loss.
Taking a bit of poetic license that
they nevertheless hope will feel authentic, the filmmakers opted to hang practicals on the tunnel walls. Cool White
fluorescents ran along one side, while
mercury-vapor bulbs lined the opposite
wall. Varese explains the strategy: In
places like hospitals and submarines, the
color of the wall on the left side is different from the color on the right side, so
that you always know which direction
you are going. We used two different
types of bulbs [to achieve a similar
effect].
Varese designed four phases for
the mine lighting, each corresponding
to what was happening in the story.
When the movie opens, the mine is a
typical work site illuminated by industrial fixtures fluorescents, mercury
vapor and sodium vapor. We added
practical lights so we could better see
the place and the men working, says
Riggen, who spoke to AC by phone.
With a laugh she adds, That way the
audience gets to really know the place
Darkest Days
Above: Cast and

crew prepare to
shoot at the
mining-office set.
Right: Varese lines
up a shot.
before we turn off the lights.

Phase two is triggered by the
mine collapse, which knocks out all
lights except the mens headlamps and
their flashlights. For these scenes, Varese
used the actors themselves to light the
action. Riggen elaborates: Say Mario
has a line to deliver. The other miners
turn to him, and their headlamps
provide the light. [To make sure his face
isnt over-lit], some of the actors look at
his chest rather than his face. In this
way, more of Mario is also visible. Using
the actors to illuminate each other was a
very original way to light.
Obtaining the right headlamps
was a feat in itself. The actual collapse
happened in 2010, Varese says, when
72
December 2015
every miners [helmet was fitted with] a

battery, cable, and headlamp with a
tungsten-filament bulb nice and
warm and beautiful. When we shot the
movie in 2012, there were no more
tungsten lamps on the market; they
[had been] replaced by cheap LEDs,
which are more efficient for battery life
but have a very specific color spectrum.
Its very ugly and harsh on the skin, and
its also not historically accurate. So we
had to procure 100 tungsten headlamps
33 for 1st unit, 33 spares and 32 for
2nd unit. We found them in Chile, of all
places. The guy said, You dont need
those; theyre too expensive. I said, No,
no, we do! And he said, Okay, but Im
letting you know we have better ones!
The bulb on each miners hardhat

was attached to a cable that went
through the mans belt and connected to
a battery. My gaffer devised a way to put
a wireless micro-dimmer on each hat,
between the bulb and the battery, Varese
says.
We had a system that allowed us
to put some of the key helmets on wireless dimmers that I could then control
with an iPad, Lee explains. The idea
would be that I could dim the helmets
during the shot, as needed, while the
actors moved freely about the set. We
found, however, that we didnt need to do
this as much as we originally thought.
The actors ended up doing just fine on
their own, simply by controlling where
their lamps were pointed.
After three days of constant usage
following the collapse, the batteries
inside both the headlamps and flashlights expire, leading to the third lighting
phase. One of the miners, Edison Elvis
Pea ( Jacob Vargas), raids vehicles on
other levels of the mine, confiscating
their batteries and using them to
recharge the miners lamps. He also rigs
a small lighting station in the main living
area. There, Varese notes, the light is all
tungsten and warm, reflecting the camaraderie and solidarity of the men. The
real miners had two bulbs, while we used
a dozen of them [to provide sufficient
light for shooting]. We literally went to a
junkyard with our incredible prop
master, scar Romero, and got dozens
of used head and taillight fixtures of
every car and truck [that would be
found] in a mine. We used some 120volt-to-12-volt transformers, and
dressed the cable the way the miners
would have.
We would try and find the more
interesting [lights] and place them
strategically, says Lee. We would then
supplement with household bulbs
hidden in and amongst the set dressing.
The fourth phase begins when the
exploratory drill breaks through the
tunnels ceiling. The rescuers send fluorescent tubes into the mine, the only
lights thin enough to fit through the
hole. The stock Cool White fluorescents
Darkest Days
A Tyler Straight Tube mount, fitted with a Flight Head V, was attached to a helicopter
for the films opening shot.
cast an ugly green light across everything a perfect reflection of the

change in mood as the miners initial joy
and relief turns to animus after the
outside world and its accompanying
publicity start planting seeds of jealousy,
pettiness and mistrust. Arguments and
even fights break out. When the men
learn that Mario has signed his own
book deal, they feel betrayed and banish
him to an isolated area.
According to Varese, visual effects
play a critical role throughout the film,
beginning with the movies opening
shot, an aerial view of the Atacama
Desert that swoops down and into the
mouth of the mine. Second-unit cinematographer Paulo Prez, ADFC shot
the aerials with an Alexa XT and an
Optimo 17-80mm zoom. (The 33 executive producer Jos Luis Escolar served
as director of the aerial unit.) We
attached a Tyler Straight Tube mount to
the choppers chassis with special
clamps, relates Prez via e-mail. In the
front part of the mount, we installed a
Flight Head V. It was connected to a
joystick panel control inside the cabin
with a multi-pin cable, and we
controlled the iris, focus and zoom wirelessly with a BarTech.
Visual-effects supervisor Alex
74
December 2015
Henning, co-founder of Los Angelesbased visual-development company

Magnopus, supervised the digital
reconstruction of Perezs aerial photography to create an entirely new camera
move in postproduction. The descent
into the mouth of the mine was
achieved using a photo-textured CG
version of the practical location that was
enhanced with CG vehicles and set
dressing. That entrance belonged to a
third mine located an hours drive
away, Henning reveals in a phone
interview. (The same entrance was used
when the workers initially get trucked
into the mine.) We digitized it and
simply placed it [where we wanted it].
The final shot was a combination of
Paulos aerials, stills I had taken of the
mine, and original material created by
Jeff Campbell and his team at Spin
VFX in Toronto.
The actual mine collapse
which resulted when a mega-stone,
twice the size of the Empire State
Building, broke free and sent hundreds
of thousands of tons of rock, dust and
debris crashing through the center of
the mine was likewise created with a
combination of practical photography
and computer-generated imagery. The
live-action portion of the sequence was
handled by the 2nd unit, shooting inside

the Zipaquir mine, where Prez most
often hand-held the A camera while
Julio Flores operated the Steadicam.
When it became necessary to fit into
tight corners, Prez swapped the Alexa
XT for a Silicon Imaging/Radiant
Images SI-2K Nano, which he paired
with Kowa JC10M C-mount lenses
(5mm, 8.5mm and 11mm), and which
recorded 2K uncompressed raw files to a
Cinedeck Extreme recorder.
Julio and the Steadicam were on
a four-wheel motorcycle, following the
men as they fled down the road and tried
to jump onto the back of the pickup
truck, recounts Prez. The truck rams
into a wall and flips over, sending several
stuntmen flying backwards through the
air. The men were attached to wires, and
giant greenscreens were hung directly
onto the rock walls to get those shots.
After taking extensive measurements and hundreds of still photos,
Henning and the visual-effects crew recreated the truck as a digital model for its
flip. Some parts of the collapse were
entirely computer-generated, [as was]
one large environment that we didnt
have any practical location for, Henning
reports. We introduce the mine as a
character early in the film, as the men are
driving down the tunnel. The camera
pans from the men in the back of the
pickup truck, pulling out into an ultrawide shot, and tilting down to reveal a
honeycombed section of the mine that
exposes its many levels and enormous
size.
After wed left Colombia, Patricia
decided we needed such a shot to
communicate the incredible size of the
mine prior to the cave-in, Henning
continues. So we created it in the
computer, using a lot of photographic
reference of our Zipaquir location. Part
of the initial pan was done physically
with the Alexa, but even as that is
happening, we are taking over the
camera move [digitally]. The later shot of
the mega-stone crashing through that
environment is a 100-percent digital
shot.
Henning expresses great apprecia-
Darkest Days
The crew
captures the
action around
the Phoenix
rescue
capsule.
tion for the second-unit crewmembers,

who had to attach huge sections of
greenscreen to the rock wall for these
effects shots. (All work was monitored
by mine-safety personnel.) Each piece
of fabric some as large as 40'x40'
took a full day to mount. My hat also
goes off to the Spin VFX team in
Toronto, our primary visual-effects
vendor, adds Henning. They handled
76
the post on both the mine collapse and

the films opening aerial shot.
Production designer Marco
Niro built an amazing replica of the
Phoenix capsule, Henning continues.
He essentially rebuilt the whole thing
an actual, functional version,
although maybe not safety rated. A
false ceiling was constructed inside
Nemocn, enabling the filmmakers to
partially pull the capsule up and away

from the mine floor. To simulate the
point of view of lex Vega (Mario
Casas), the first miner to ride the
Phoenix back to the surface, Varese
stood inside the capsule hand-holding
the SI-2K Nano.
A few days before the production
moved to Chile, it was determined that
some of the initial footage of the miners
fleeing the cave-in would have to be
redone. Varese served as both cinematographer and 2nd-unit director for
three days of intensive reshoots with
Riggen at the helm to direct the actors
during which four cameras were
employed.
Varese has high praise for his
crewmembers, who came from all over
South America. Given that cast and
crew were working either in the blazing
desert or in a dark, dank mineshaft,
conditions were far from ideal, but all
the equipment held up superbly.
Lattanzi, who used Preston and Scorpio
remote-focus systems, notes, We had

sand, heat and wind in the desert, while
underground it was so hot and humid
we sometimes had trouble breathing.
The film ends with black-andwhite footage of the real San Jos
miners at the ocean. Riggen had set up
a long table on the beach and prepared
a feast for the men. After they ate they
got in a circle and prayed. We had two
handheld cameras, says Varese. We
shot in color and stripped the color in
post. The scene was shot at Baha
Inglesa, on the Chilean coast.
Color timing was handled at
Company 3 in Santa Monica, where
ASC associate Stefan Sonnenfeld
worked with Blackmagic Designs
DaVinci Resolve version 11, mastering
the film in 2K for a final 2K DCP deliverable. It was interesting working on
the scenes with the trapped miners,
because any kind of light was at a
premium, says Sonnenfeld. The
temptation for a colorist might be to try
to even out the images and make them

more traditionally pleasing, but, of
course, Patricia and Checco built in that
harshness to create a feeling of being
trapped. In color grading, we sometimes
pushed those extremes even further.
Varese considers The 33 the most
important movie I have ever shot. It was
an extraordinarily difficult film we
were constantly rowing upriver. But the
subject matter is so important. Its a
movie about love, hope and the human
spirit. Furthermore, I was shooting in
the darkest and the brightest places on
Earth, a unique opportunity for a cinematographer. You start from scratch on
both ends.
TECHNICAL SPECS
2.39:1
Digital Capture
Arri Alexa XT,
Silicon Imaging/Radiant Images
SI-2K Nano
Angenieux Optimo,
Arri/Zeiss Ultra Prime,
Cooke S4, Kowa JC10M
77
Endgame
Jo Willems, ASC, SBC and
director Francis Lawrence journey
into dark places as the rebels launch
their final attack in The Hunger
Games: Mockingjay Part 2.
By Mark Dillon
|
he Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 brings down the

curtain on the blockbuster four-part sci-fi series that has
captured the worlds imagination and grossed more than
$2.3 billion at the global box office.
When audiences visited the post-apocalyptic nation of
Panem in last years Part 1, arrow-launching heroine Katniss
Everdeen ( Jennifer Lawrence) had agreed in a deal with
District 13s mysterious President Alma Coin ( Julianne
Moore) to assume the role of Mockingjay, symbolic
78
December 2015
leader of the rebellion against the Capitols suppressive

President Snow (Donald Sutherland). Part 2 sees the rebels
embarking upon their strike on the Capitol, with Katniss and
Snow each intent on killing the other. Katniss and allies Gale
(Liam Hemsworth), Finnick (Sam Claflin) and Peeta ( Josh
Hutcherson) set off with District 13 troops to capture Snow,
but the evil leader is prepared for them, lining the Capitol
streets and underground with pods deadly traps used in the
Hunger Games contests. Along the way, Katniss begins to see
that Coin is not all she seems.
For this final chapter, Francis Lawrence was at the helm
once again, having directed the series second and third entries
Catching Fire and Mockingjay Part 1 both adapted
from author Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games literary trilogy. Director of photography Jo Willems, ASC, SBC has
been at Lawrences side throughout. Based in Los Angeles,
the Belgian cinematographer had previously collaborated with
the director on the pilot for the series Touch and the telefilm
Gotham (not to be confused with the Batman prequel series),
both of which aired in 2012.
Willems refers to Lawrence as a great leader, but in a
generous and collaborative way, and notes that the directors
shooting style requires [lighting] in a flexible way. Hes well
Unit photography by Murray Close, courtesy of Lionsgate.
Opposite and this

page, top: Katniss
Everdeen (Jennifer
Lawrence) leads a
rebel faction in its
strike on Panems
Capitol in The
Hunger Games:
Mockingjay Part 2.
Below:
Cinematographer
Jo Willems, ASC, SBC
(left) and director
Francis Lawrence
(pointing) confer
on set.
prepared for how hes going to shoot

and leads the team to what he wants to
achieve. Some directors thrive on chaos.
Ive been in those situations and it can
be gratifying, but we shot about 250
days [on Catching Fire and the
Mockingjay films], and chaos would
have been very tiring.
Maintaining preparedness meant
storyboards and previs for sequences
featuring visual effects or elaborate
action, as well as for shots that required
digital extensions of production
designer Philip Messinas retro-futuristic sets. Indeed, the electrical department spent weeks setting up lights on
some of the larger sites. Lawrence
would go over his blocking strategy at
the start of each day, and the net result
of all this planning kept shooting days
that could have stretched to 14 hours or
more down to 10, which was far less
taxing on all involved a particularly
important consideration given the overall length of production.
Part 1 and Part 2 were shot
largely back-to-back, with some overlap
to take advantage of common locations.
Willems had eight weeks of prep time
before cameras rolled in and around
Atlanta. The production crossed the

pond in April to continue shooting in
Paris and Berlin. The combined 150day shoot began in late September 2013
and lasted through June 2014, with a
break in November for the Catching Fire
release, during which further location
scouting took place.
The filmmakers had shot
www.theasc.com
Catching Fire on Panaflex Millennium

XL2, Arriflex 435 and Imax film
cameras, but switched to digital for the
Mockingjay movies. Despite initial
misgivings about creating too clean a
look, they wanted as much freedom as
possible when shooting in Part 2s lowlight sets, including the underground
District 13 and the sewers through
December 2015
79
Endgame
Katniss and her

compatriots run
into trouble as
they navigate
sewer tunnels on
their way to
the Capitol.
which the protagonists approach the

Capitol.
We wanted full practical ceilings
for some sets, and to look 360 degrees in
these rooms, so many of these environments were going to be lit with practicals or hidden LED lights, Willems
explains. That led us to ask, Why dont
we shoot digitally? We ended up getting
a look that was more naturalistic than if
we had shot on film, which would have
required more light and less freedom in
how we would shoot. This way we could
shoot in low light at 800 ASA and get
detail in the blacks.
80
December 2015
Various cameras were tested, but

the filmmakers opted for an Arri Alexa
XT, confident after having positive
experiences with Alexas on the TV
projects they had worked on together.
On the Mockingjay movies, they shot
ArriRaw in 4:3 sensor mode, recording
to Codex Capture Drive XRs. The crew
also used a few GoPro Hero3 cameras
for surveillance footage and a Red Epic
Dragon paired with Panavision
Primo spherical lenses for some
minor aerial and visual-effects work.
The crew carried three camera
bodies, preferably running two simultaAmerican Cinematographer
neously and keeping the third for

Steadicam, which was operated by
David J. Thompson, SOC. As the filmmakers wanted to cover themselves in
the case of an actor improvising, we
would sometimes shoot the same side
of the conversation in medium and
close-up [simultaneously], so the actor
wouldnt have to do it over and over,
Willems notes.
The crew never ran three cameras
concurrently, however, even for big
action scenes. Its Katniss story, so we
told it from her perspective, Willems
says. There are some big establishing
Endgame
shots, but on the whole the idea was to
always stay with her. We just pared it
down to the essentials of her story.
With the A camera manned by
Thompson whose collaboration with
Willems dates back to 2006s Rocket
Science and B camera by Josh Medak,
the cinematographer was free to run
between the set and video tent. Willems
kept in constant contact with his longtime gaffer, Walter Bithell, and key grip,
Guy Micheletti, via headset. I dont
have to be on set all the time to be able
to run the set, he says.
Factoring in the odd trackingvehicle or crane shot, Willems estimates
that 80 percent of the movie was shot
handheld, creating the sense of a documentary crew following the heroes into
war. Its not like we were shaking the
camera for handheld effect, he says. It
was more about a naturalistic style, and
to be close and intimate with the actors.
An operator can react to anything an
actor does in a very simple way; Dave
and Josh would just throw the camera
on their shoulder and do a dance with
the actors, really. We didnt want to be
inhibited by track or cranes or unnecessary equipment. It just kept the flow of
the shoot going and it kept communication really simple on set. These movies
are very big in scale, but the way they
were conceived and shot on set was
actually fairly simple. I think it keeps the
movies very grounded.
Lawrence and Willems never had
any doubt that they would shoot in the
anamorphic format, and their lens package included Panavision C and E Series
anamorphic primes. The cinematographer did carry a set of spherical lenses,
believing he might need them to register
a proper image in dark sewers, but didnt
end up touching them. The anamorphic lenses gave us nice flares and the
same feel down there as in the rest of the
movie, he notes.
Willems generally shot interiors
at T2.8 or a T2.8/4 split. As he notes, I
kept things a bit dark and moody for the
most part. For exteriors, he adds,
When Im shooting large-scale locations, I dont feel the need to shoot wide
Top: Katniss and

Gale Hawthorne
(Liam
Hemsworth) try
to blend in with
the crowd.
Middle and
bottom: An
attack puts
everyone in
danger.
82
December 2015
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Endgame
open and let everything fall off really
heavily, so Im usually shooting at T5.6
or T5.6 plus . With anamorphic it falls
off quicker, anyway.
The filmmakers leaned most
heavily on lengths of 40mm, 60mm,
75mm and 100mm. A few wide shots
called for 30mm and 35mm lengths,
while the occasional close-up made use
of a 135mm. Limiting yourself to fewer
focal lengths gives you a little more style
and visual continuity, Willems opines.
Its about sticking to a code of simplicity and naturalism.
Willems is particularly fond of
the C Series, which was generally fitted
to the A camera. He says he used the E
Series on the B camera a bit out of
necessity. Its difficult to get lenses for
anamorphic now, particularly these
older lenses that lend themselves so well
to digital. I dont use diffusion filters; if
you use an older, gentler lens with lower
contrast, you dont have to. Theres more
softness to the C Series lenses, which
produce very pleasing skin tones. The E
Series is sharper, but they blend well
together, and we could blend them
further in the DI.
The cinematographer points out
that the lenses sometimes fall apart a
little, which he considers a good thing.
A light might make a flare that flattens
the image a bit, but I like that the image
is a little flawed and broken down at
times. The audience is more connected
with a story and believes the world more
if things arent always perfect.
G Series primes were brought in
for some close-focus work, and 4080mm AWZ2 (T2.8) and 70-200mm
ATZ (T3.5) zooms were employed on
crane and aerial shots.
The sewer sets built at
EUE/Screen Gems Studios Atlanta had
ceilings barely higher than the actors,
who were knee-deep and sometimes
neck-deep in water. To keep pace
with the actors, Micheletti laid track at
the edges of the 5'-wide canal so
Thompson could be quickly pulled
along on the dolly, the wheels of which
were underwater.
Light was provided by the actors
Top: Katniss shares

a moment with
Haymitch
Abernathy (Woody
Harrelson), who
mentored her
through her first
Hunger Games.
Middle: Alma Coin
(Julianne Moore),
president of District
13 and a leader of
the rebel forces,
makes a public
address. Bottom:
President Snow
(Donald
Sutherland)
maintains his grip
on the rest of
Panem.
84
December 2015
Endgame
Right: Gale and

the rebels steel
themselves for
battle. Below,
left: A handheld
camera captures
the action.
Below, right:
Willems
discusses the
scene with one
of the camera
operators.
flashlights and lights from their crossbows the former gelled with
Minus Green and the latter with or
CTO. Willems instructed the actors on
where to point them, and sometimes got
inside the tunnel himself to shine a
flashlight on faces for detail. A couple of
electricians also ran along with the
actors, supplementing with 1x1 BiColor LED Litepanel units. It was
choreography among camera, grip,
actors and electricians, recalls Bithell.
When one electrician would round a
corner, he would fade off and hand the
Litepanel to another guy. There were a
86
December 2015
couple of collisions, for sure.

Bardwell & McAlister Mac Tech
12 Mini Dino lights with 750-watt
HPL bulbs lit the end of the tunnels.
We would either bounce them or shoot
one up into the ceiling to provide
depth, Bithell explains. We didnt
want it to look lit, but we didnt want it
to be pitch black, either. We wanted to
have some sense of architecture inside
the sewer.
The sewer line leads Katniss,
Gale, Peeta, Finnick and their unit to a
central cistern connected to three other
tunnels. The rebels trigger a pod,
unleashing a deadly attack of lizard-like

muttations a Hunger Games term
referring to mutated animals. The mutts
were played by stunt performers who
interacted with the actors while wearing
gray motion-capture suits with tracking
marks. Weta Digital later replaced the
performers with the reptilian animated
characters. Its one of the most amazing
things Ive ever seen done with visual
effects, Willems attests.
Front- and backlights were
provided by 18 practical wall sconces,
each containing one 250-watt industrial
tungsten bulb. (Stronger lights would
Endgame
The rebels
celebrate the
marriage of
Annie Cresta
(Stef Dawson)
and Finnick
Odair (Sam
Claflin).
have cracked the glass due to moisture.)

The crew supplemented the practicals
with Jem Balls and Rifa lights positioned at high angles. Flames, ostensibly
caused by the detonation of armed
crossbow arrows, were produced by fire
bars in the tunnel entrances, adding a
further glow. Mac Tech 12s on a chase
boosted the level of the flames flickering, and a 1K on a dolly with Full and
CTO simulated light from explosions.
As in the previous films, the wartorn districts and decadent Capitol have
distinctly different looks. The districts
have less color, Willems notes. Its
always slightly cooler, bleaker and more
depressing. Meanwhile, the Capitol is
golden, richer and more colorful.
88
December 2015
He adds that director Gary Ross

and cinematographer Tom Stern, ASC,
AFC, who collaborated on 2012s The
Hunger Games, started that [look] in the
first movie, but [applied] starker contrast
to it. Snows world is always more regal,
but then we have some scenes in there
that are dark and sinister, because Snow
is the evil character from that side.
One such scene is a dinner meeting attended by Snow, where one of his
ministers is poisoned. Shot in Frances
Chteau de Voisins, the scene was lit
mostly by practicals, including five chandeliers and five wall-lamps with clear
50-watt tungsten bulbs, candles on the
table, and a large mirror providing
bounce. A dimmed-down pancake
balloon-light against the ceiling

provided some additional warmth and
ambient lighting.
It was not always gloom and
doom in the districts, however. An
underground meadow where District 13
survivors have replicated an outdoor
pasture provides the picturesque setting
for the wedding of Finnick and Annie
(Stef Dawson). Rigging gaffer Mike
Tyson and his crew rimmed the circular
set which was constructed in a warehouse with more than 300 2K
Blondes, and 14 Par bars each mounted
with six 1K Par cans, while 73 space
lights illuminated from above. (A CG
ceiling was placed over the meadow
under the guidance of visual-effects
supervisor Charles Gibson.) A total of
72 Kino Flo Image 45s some hanging and some on the floor and a
dozen Image 85s on combo stands illuminated a 360-degree bluescreen at the
end of the meadow for digital-set extension; bluescreen was used due to the
green of the foliage and the actors
fatigues, the latter provided by costume
designers Kurt and Bart. Bulbs that were
in frame were later covered over with
digitally created lights.
Lighting-console programmer
Scott Barnes had the Blondes on
dimmers so he could turn banks of them
on or off to suggest the shifting position
of the meadows pseudo-sunlight at
different times of day. In one of the
scenes most touching moments, Katniss
and her sister, Prim (Willow Shields),
dance and hug; the Steadicam circled
them multiple times as Barnes manipulated the Blondes on the fly. You dont
notice it in the scene, but the light is
constantly dimming around the room,
Willems explains. As the cameras
moving, the characters stay in constant
backlight avoiding frontlight for a
moody feel. Scott is a genius at that. He
would just look at the monitor and make
the changes.
Micheletti hung a variety of diffusion frames that could be lowered for
close-ups, to help keep the floor clear.
The frames were skinned with Opal
Frost, 250 and 216 diffusions.
Before marching on the Capitol,

Katniss and her unit of District 13
soldiers join local rebels at a District 2
train depot a sequence shot at the
inactive Berlin Tempelhof Airport
where they hatch a plan to destroy the
Nut, a Capitol military installation.
After they bomb it, survivors arrive by
train at the depot to surrender to the
rebels; one of them shoots and injures
Katniss as she tries to rally them against
Snow.
For this night exterior, four 120'
Condors fitted with 12-light MaxiBrutes and Dinos provided backlight.
The lights were gelled with CTO and
18 Plus Green for a look Bithell
describes as industrial and gritty
sodium vapor-ish but purposefully not
exactly sodium vapor. Ambience was
created with 16K and 8K spherical
tungsten balloons in speed-rail baskets
mounted on 125' Condors, while more
12-lights on the ground illuminated
architecture and background actors.
To showcase the Tempelhof s
unique curved structure, 20 2K Fresnels
and 20 2K Blondes lit windows from the
inside, while 20 Par cans with CTO
up-lit the building from outside.
Bithell worked meticulously with
Willems on selecting gels. The cinematographer would then return to the
color station to refine the palette with
digital-imaging technician and dailies
colorist Adrian Jebef, which could in
turn necessitate additional filter changes.
A lot of cinematographers would say,
You can fix it in the DI youre wasting time by pre-grading the film on set,
says Jebef, who had worked with the
filmmakers previously on Touch. But
once we arrived at the overall desired
look, for the rest of that process the right
gels went on and the right CDL or onset color grade was saved and applied. If
we came back to it another day, we could
simply recall our settings and then refine
them again for another scene. The
synthesis between how the set is being lit
and how it will be color-graded allows
every department to know exactly what
is intended for every scene. Its the ultimate previs and consequently creates
Endgame
The crew keeps
pace with
Lawrence. It's
not like we
were shaking
the camera for
handheld
effect, Willems
says of
the films
camerawork.
These movies
are very big in
scale, but the
way they were
conceived and
shot on set was
actually fairly
simple.
more efficiency in the filmmaking

process. You can only really do that with
on-set color.
EFilm provided a basic show
LUT, and beyond that Willems and
Jebef colored each shot on the fly using
Technicolors DP Lights system. Jebef
evaluated images on Sony BVME250A
25" OLED monitors, while a Panasonic
60" plasma was used for select dailies
viewing and additional color correction.
Dailies were screened at lunchtime for
anyone who wanted to watch.
Every grade was saved as a CDL
file, which Jebef would deliver with the
days master footage. Media manager
Kyle Spicer handled the hand-off of
camera original masters and metadata to
the Technicolor dailies lab at the Atlanta
production offices. When the production moved to Europe, Technicolors
mobile lab went right along. DNxHD
36 files were created by Technicolor
with Colorfront software for the editorial staff, led by Alan Edward Bell and
Mark Yoshikawa, who cut the picture
on Avid Media Composer.
Supervising digital colorist Mitch
Paulson performed the DI at EFilm in
Hollywood using Autodesk Lustre,
90
December 2015
working with 2880x2160 DPX files.

Paulson estimates that the grading,
which began in April, took 140 hours.
Because of all the visual effects, he
would only color after batches of shots
were delivered. Willems spent about
four weeks with him, and Lawrence
popped in to provide notes.
In the DI, the cinematographer
emphasized a desaturated, cool, monochromatic look aboveground in the
districts, while pushing a dirty, desaturated, industrial sodium-vapor look in
the underground settings.
We had to pull out colors that
popped out too much when the characters are going through the destroyed
districts, Paulson says. The movie
starts right where Part 1 left off, so we
had to keep the ending of that movie in
mind; we wanted to make it a smooth
transition. After that, we focused on
keeping things feeling real and not
too glossy. (DI passes were also done
for versions in 2D, 3D and Dolby
Vision.)
The Hunger Games series has been
a filmmaking marathon for performers
and crew alike, including the director
and cinematographer, who have dediAmerican Cinematographer
cated more than two years of their lives

to it. It was a great experience and a
good learning experience, as well,
Willems says. Im not saying there
wasnt stress at any time, but I enjoyed
the journey and I am really happy with
the end result. I hope I can work with all
these people again.
TECHNICAL SPECS
Digital Capture
2.39:1
Arri Alexa XT, Red Epic Dragon,
GoPro Hero3
Panavision C Series, E Series,
G Series, AWZ2, ATZ, Primo
New Products & Services

Canon Expo Touts Companys Current,
Future Technologies
By Stephen Pizzello
Every five years, the ambitious Canon Expo is mounted in key
cities to offer attendees a detailed overview of the companys
emerging technologies and corporate strategies. Earlier this year,
Canon unveiled its offerings at the Jacob Javits Convention Center
in New York (Sept. 10-11) and at the Grande Halle de la Villette in
Paris (Oct. 13-15), with follow-up exhibitions planned for Tokyo and
Shanghai.
AC was on the show floor at the New York event, where the
companys technologies were organized into zones: Film Production,
where the company spotlighted its production tools for creative
storytelling via photography, motion imaging and post; Imaging
Journey, which traced the evolution of imaging, including the
ongoing development of a 4K
projector capable of 8K projection;
Stadium, which featured a small-scale
re-creation of Yankee Stadium where
visitors could find information on the
cameras and lenses used by professionals shooting sports; Professional
Printing, which offered information
on a range of large-format printers;
Home, which gave visitors a look at
modern home-imaging tools; Enterprise,
spotlighting Canons business-oriented technologies; University,
where visitors could review the companys technologies for science,
medicine and other disciplines; Advanced Industry, detailing products for the manufacturing world; Canon Central Park, which
outlined the companys global ambitions; and Customer Experience,
touting Canons commitment to customer service. (To experience a
virtual tour of these zones online, visit Expo2015NY.com/virtualtour.)
Cinematographers attending the show prioritized the Film
Production Zone, where they could spend time examining the
Cinema EOS C300 Mark II, which is designed for cinema, documentary and ENG use. The PL-mount camera, upgraded to 4K for NAB
2015, features a new 8.85-megapixel Super 35mm Canon CMOS
Sensor and new Dual DIGIC DV5 image processors, as well as
improved Dual Pixel CMOS Autofocus and a new Canon XF-AVC
codec that allows the capture of internal 10-bit 4:2:2 4K files. The
Mark II also employs Canon Log 2, which expands its latitude to 15
stops from the 12 stops offered by the original C300.
Other cameras on display included the XC10, an affordable
4K camcorder ($2,499) with a fixed 10x optical zoom lens (27.3273mm) with a 2x digital teleconverter, a 1" 12-megapixel CMOS
92
December 2015
SUBMISSION INFORMATION
Please e-mail New Products/Services releases to
newproducts@ascmag.com and include full contact
information and product images. Photos must be
TIFF or JPEG files of at least 300dpi.
sensor, optical image stabilization, and the new DIGIC DV5 image
processor.
Visitors to the Film Production Zone could also examine
Canons plans for an 8K future. Still in development is an 8K Cinema
EOS camera, lens and reference display. Specs for the camera touted
its Super 35mm Sensor, offering 8192x4320 resolution (approximately 35.39 million effective pixels) up to frame rates of 60 fps, a
dynamic range of 13 stops, and a wide color gamut.
The ultra-high-resolution Canon 8K reference display
currently in development aims to achieve high brightness, high
contrast (high dynamic
range) and a wide color
gamut. The company
maintains that the monitors pixel density, which
exceeds 300 pixels per
inch, approaches the
upper limits of human
vision and will allow
ultra-realistic imaging that can
reproduce even subtle changes in light.
Also in development is a 120-megapixel SLR camera that will
incorporate a Canon-developed high-pixel-density CMOS sensor
within the current EOS camera-series platform, making it compatible with most of the companys interchangeable EF lenses. According to Canon, The high-resolution images that the camera is being
designed to be capable of producing can re-create the three-dimensional texture, feel and presence of subjects, making them appear
as if they are really before ones eyes. Furthermore, the future SLR
is being designed to facilitate a level of resolution more than sufficient for large-format printing and extensive cropping capability
while maintaining fantastic image quality.
Canon also announced its plans for an LCOS projector capable of displaying video and still images at a resolution up to
4096x2400 pixels with 5,000 lumens of brightness, a level of definition surpassing the 4096x2160-pixel resolution of 4K digital
cinema.
Perhaps the most eye-opening news, however, was Canons
announcement that it has developed a new CMOS sensor incorporating approximately 250 million pixels (19,580x12,600 pixels)
the highest number of pixels for a CMOS sensor smaller than the
size of a 35mm full-frame sensor.
The company maintains that the new APS-H-size sensor
(29.2x20.2mm), when installed in one of Canons prototype
cameras, was able to capture images enabling the distinguishing
of lettering on the side of an airplane flying at a distance of approximately 11 miles (18km) from the shooting location. Canon further
claims that advancements such as circuit miniaturization and
enhanced signal-processing technology

allows an ultra-high signal readout speed of
1.25 billion pixels per second, eliminating
past problems with CMOS sensors that
include signal delays and slight discrepancies in timing.
This technology allows the capture
of ultra-high-pixel-count video at a speed of
up to 5 fps, at a resolution approximately
125 times that of Full HD (1920x1080
pixels) and approximately 30 times that of
4K UHD (3840x2160) video. Since this resolution clearly exceeds the typical needs of
the average photographer, the technology
will probably be applied for surveillance or
industrial purposes.
In addition to the technologies on
display, Canon Expo NY offered a variety of
instructive seminars several of which
featured ASC members and associates, as
well as other filmmakers of note. Sam
Nicholson, ASC presented Next-Gen VFX:
How Canon is Pushing the Possibilities,
and associate Douglas Kirkland traced the
arc of his career as a renowned still photographer by showing examples of his work
during the talk Douglas Kirkland A Life
in Pictures. Other presenters included cinematographer Gale Tattersall, BSC; combat
journalist and filmmaker Sebastian Junger;
commercial director-cinematographers Tyler
Stableford and Vincent Laforet; two pairs of
documentary collaborators, Ben Powell and
Nicola Marsh and Joel Bach and David
Gelber; and Imax cinematographer James
Neihouse, who has supervised stunning
space documentaries in cooperation with
NASA.
Red Unveils Raven
Red Digital Cinema has added the
Red Raven to its line of professional camera
systems. Weighing in at only 3.5 pounds,
the Red Raven is Reds lightest and most
compact camera.
The Red Raven is equipped with a
4K Red Dragon sensor, and is capable of
recording Redcode Raw (R3D) in 4K at up to
120 fps and in 2K at up to 240 fps. The
camera also offers excellent dynamic range
and color science, and is capable of recording Redcode Raw and Apple ProRes simultaneously.
The Red Raven will begin shipping in
February 2016. Customers have the choice
of purchasing the
camera Brain only
and building a kit
that best fits their
needs, or choosing a complete
package. Package
options include the
Red Raven Base I/O Package and the Red Raven Jetpack Package;
the latter is specifically designed for use with
drones, jibs, cranes and handheld gimbals.
Pricing begins at $5,950 for the camera
Brain only, and a complete Raven package
costs under $10,000.
For additional information, visit
www.red.com/red-raven.
Telecine &
Color Grading
Jod is a true artist with
a great passion for his craft.
John W. Simmons, ASC
Contact Jod @ 310-713-8388

Jod@apt-4.com
94
Aurora Camera Goes Beyond 4K

Aurora Camera has introduced the
Aurora 4K+ camera system, which has a
full-gate 35mm-size (24.5x18.4mm) 4:3
sensor capable of capturing images up to
4Kx3K (4096x3072). The camera is
currently being field-tested and is expected
to be available in the first quarter of 2016.
Measuring only 2.5" wide, 2.5" high
and 5" long (excluding the lens mount), the
Aurora 4K+ runs on 12/24-volt DC power
and boasts a global shutter and raw Bayer
10 bits/pixel color sampling. The companys
tests have shown the cameras sensor to
have a base sensitivity of 800 ISO with
approximately 11 stops of dynamic range.
The camera can shoot at resolutions of
4096x3072 (4K+), 4096x2160 (4K),
3840x3072 (UHD+), 3840x2160 (UHD),
2048x1080 (2K) and 1920x1080 (HD).
Additionally, it is Bluetooth-addressable and
currently features Dual 3G-SDI (10
bits/pixel), HD-SDI, and USB interfaces.
Currently available camera speeds are 24,
25 and 30 fps, with future upgrades
planned for time-lapse and 60 fps, as well
as gen lock. There is no internal recording,
but the camera can be easily paired with
systems such as Convergent Designs
Odyssey7Q+.
We knew there was going to be an
external monitor anyway, so we chose to
make the camera as small and lightweight
as possible, says ASC associate Al Mayer
Jr., an Academy and Emmy Award-winning
designer of motion-picture camera systems
and the president of Aurora Camera. The
impetus to develop the camera came

about when we were approached by
some of the folks from Mission: Impossible
[Rogue Nation] to create a camera with a
roll axis that would fit on a motorcycle, he
adds. Although the system could not be
completed in time for that productions
schedule, the Aurora Camera team
which includes partners Joe Cicio, Richard
Volp and Jack Schakett continued the
development process.
The Aurora 4K+ can work with both
anamorphic and spherical lenses, and the
mount can be changed to accommodate
PL, Panavision, Canon EF, Nikon F and other
lens mounts. The camera and lens mount
together weigh less than 15 ounces; when
the camera is rigged with a Panavision LWZ2 zoom lens, an IDX Endura 10S battery, an
Odyssey 7Q+, a base plate, two 15mm rods
and all requisite cables, the system weighs
only 10 pounds 5 ounces.
In addition to the sort of action

photography for which the Aurora 4K+ was
conceived, Mayer says the camera will be
great for location scouting, because you
can use the exact same lens [that will be
used for principal photography] and youre
recording in 4K, so youve got the bigscreen feel. Additionally, Mayer says the
camera has already piqued interest from the
sports, surveillance and agricultural industries. It can be flown on a drone, and
[users] can get 4K, 12.6-megapixel
imagery.
In addition to the Aurora 4K+, the
company has partnered with RF Films to
develop a custom-built, GPS-controlled roll
axis. Mayer notes, It always maintains horizontal [positioning], either through internal
metering or using up to 12 satellites at any
one time.
For more information and to see
unprocessed footage from the Aurora 4K+
in action, visit www.auroracamera.net.
Campilots Launches
RacingSlowMo
Building on the design of the awardwinning CableCam system, Munich-based
Campilots
has
introduced
the
RacingSlowMo. Designed to capture
moving images that seem to nearly freeze
time, the system rigs a Vision Research
Phantom Miro high-speed camera capable of shooting at up to 1,500 fps onto
a modified CableCam. The remote-operated system can span up to 200m (656') at
speeds up to 80 km/h (49 mph).
In cooperation with Dedo Weigert
Film, Campilots offers lighting equipment
and a large variety of camera lenses for the
specialized needs of high-speed cinematography.
For additional information and to
watch a video of the RacingSlowMo in
action, visit www.campilots.com/de/racingslowmo.html.
Kino Flo Controls Select LEDs

Kino Flo has introduced the Select
30 and Select 20 portable, high-output LED
fixtures as well as the 150-watt Universal
Controller, which can operate the Select
LED systems.
The Select 30 and Select 20 LED soft
lights combine the best of Kino Flos Celeb
LEDs flicker-free color and dimming
controls with the versatility of the
companys 4Bank, Double and Single lighting systems. The fixtures built-in DMX
controls the expanded range of color
96
temperature while offering smooth

dimming and adjustable magenta and
green hues. The lightweight units can be
mounted on a stand, rigged into set
pieces or gaffer-taped into tight locations. Additionally, the detachable
Universal Controller can mount on any
Select fixture head, or it can be removed
to operate the fixture from up to 25'
away.
The Select 30 measures 40" long
and weighs 12 pounds; the Select 20 is
approximately 26" long and weighs less
than 10 pounds. Key features of both
fixtures include: Kelvin presets and custom
settings from 2,700K-6,500K; universal
input 100-240-volt AC and 24-volt DC; a
detachable 150-watt Universal Controller;
manual and DMX dimming with autoterminate; flicker-free, quiet operation;
built-in barn doors; and a twist-on locking
center mount.
All Kino Flo lighting systems
and fixtures are made in Burbank, Calif.
www.kinoflo.com.
Codex Ships V-Raw for
VariCam 35
Codex has begun delivering the
Codex V-Raw Recorder for the Panasonic
VariCam 35 camera. The V-Raw Recorder
adds uncompressed raw capture to the
VariCam 35 camera platform and enables
the recording of 4K raw files at up to
120 fps.
The V-Raw Recorder records to the
next-generation Codex Capture Drive 2.0,
which boasts a 20Gb/s bandwidth. The VRaw Recorder comes as a direct-attach
module for the VariCam 35 camera, eliminating the need for cables and making
operation straightforward. Adding even
more functionality to the camera package,
the V-Raw Recorder also powers the
camera and has three 24-volt accessory
power outputs.
The Codex V-Raw Recorder for the
VariCam 35 continues Codexs tradition of
providing reliable recording and media in
the industry as well as a fully-featured,
streamlined workflow from production to
post and archive, via the Codex Vault Platform, Vault Review, Review Live and Media
Vault systems.
www.codexdigital.com.
KGS Enhances Monotracks

Key Grip Systems Development has
launched a new range of its Monotracks.
Made from top-quality aluminum alloy, the
lightweight, rigid track system is easy to use
and fast to set up for a variety of shooting
98
situations. The tracks are available in a large

range of widths and in lengths from 2' to
20' (in 2' increments). Stainless-steel
connectors and the pre-stressed mechanical assembly contribute to the track
systems precision, and plastic profiles
protect the tracks during transport.
www.kgsd.eu.
Vitec Creative Solutions
Opens L.A. Showroom
Vitec Videocoms Creative Solutions
unit has opened a showroom in Los Angeles to allow industry professionals hands-on
experience with products from Paralinx,
SmallHD and Teradek in addition to products from other Vitec Group brands. The
focus of the Creative Solutions Los Angeles
showroom is to outfit, educate and support
customers who are looking for assistance to
configure their rigs and learn more about
the ways emerging technology can boost
their effectiveness on set.
The CSLA showroom is housed in
the fully redesigned facility formerly occu-
pied solely by Paralinx. Greg Smokler, cofounder of Paralinx and general manager of
CSLA, notes, The Paralinx team has always
prided itself on being deeply embedded in
the L.A. film-production community, and
this new effort in coordination with the
talented teams at Teradek and SmallHD
affirms our dedication to direct interaction
with content creators in the busiest production hub on Earth.
The CSLA showroom is located at
5329 West San Fernando Road, Los Angeles, CA 90039. For additional information,
visit www.shopcreativesolutions.com.
Sim Group Relocates

The Sim Group has entered into a
long-term lease for a 65,000-square-foot
space at the historic Eastman Kodak building on North Las Palmas Avenue in Hollywood. The Sim Group will undertake a
multi-million-dollar build-out of the facility,
currently known as the Hollywood Office
Campus, to house the Los Angeles operations of its companies Chainsaw, Sim Digital and Bling Digital. The new space will
allow each company to significantly expand
services and work more collaboratively.
Construction is expected to be complete by
May 2016.
The move is part of Sim Groups

strategy to provide complete and fully integrated services for feature and television
production and postproduction. The three
Sim Group companies will share a selfstanding, three-story building. Sim Digital,
which rents cameras and other production
gear, will occupy the first floor; Chainsaw, a
postproduction facility offering offline editorial, editorial finishing and color-grading
services, and Bling Digital, which provides
dailies-processing and workflow services,
will share the second and third floors.
In uniting Chainsaw and Bling
Digital, the new facility will become one of
the largest independent postproduction
facilities in Southern California. It will
increase the companies footprint with
more offline editorial rooms, color-grading
suites, online edit bays, Autodesk Flame
conforming/visual-effects bays, a DI grading
theater, sound facilities, production offices
and dailies-workflow resources. Chainsaw
will also retain its current North Sycamore
Avenue facility in Hollywood, which features
25 offline editorial rooms.
We are applying 20 years of experience to create the most modern and efficient postproduction facility of its type, says
Chainsaw founder Bill DeRonde. The infrastructure will take advantage of the latest
technology for routing media and supporting high-resolution and ultra-high-resolution
workflows. It will be an open pipe and ready
for anything.
The new Sim Digital facility will
feature state-of-the-art prep bays and engineering workspace for cameras and postproduction, as well as customer-service
space and loading docks. Bling Digital will
feature dailies processing and other production-support services. Were excited about
the synergies, DeRonde notes. Chainsaw
and Bling Digital are natural collaborators
with complementary services and talent
pools. We can assist clients with everything
from dailies through deliverables with high
expertise and peak efficiency.
www.simgroup.com.
99
International Marketplace
100
December 2015
Classifieds
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All classifications are $4.50 per word. Words set
in bold face or all capitals are $5.00 per word.
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Deadline for payment and copy must be in the
office by 15th of second month preceding publication. Subject matter is limited to items and services pertaining to filmmaking and video production.
Words used are subject to magazine style abbreviation. Minimum amount per ad: $45
EQUIPMENT FOR SALE

4X5 85 Glass Filters, Diffusion, Polas etc. A
Good Box Rental 818-763-8547
16,000+ USED PRODUCTION EQUIPMENT ITEMS
www.ProVideoFilm.com
www.UsedEquipmentNewsletter.com
888 869 9998
EQUIPMENT FOR SALE

Worlds SUPERMARKET of USED MOTION
PICTURE EQUIPMENT! Buy, Sell, Trade.
CAMERAS, LENSES, SUPPORT, AKS &
MORE! Visual Products, Inc. www.visual
products.com Call 440.647.4999
HOLLYWOOD STUDIO ANTIQUES

www.CinemaAntiques.com
BUY-SELL-TRADE
www.theasc.com
December 2015
101
Advertisers Index
20th Century Fox Films
7, 15, 21
Eastman Kodak C4
EVS/Express Video Supply 93
Adorama 57, 89
AJA Video Systems, Inc. 76
Alan Gordon Enterprises 101
Arri 59
Arri Rental 71
ASC 98
ASC Master Class 8
Aura Productions 94
Fluotec 61
Focus Features 9
Fox Searchlight Pictures 19, 27
Friends of the ASC 99
B&H Photo-Video_Pro Audio

91
Backstage Equipment, Inc.
61
Blackmagic Design, Inc. 47
Lights! Action! Co. 100
Canon USA 35
Cavision Enterprises 100
Chapman/Leonard
Studio Equip. 85
Cinematography
Electronics 61
Cinekinetic 100
Convergent Design 83
Cooke Optics 69
NBC Universal Pictures 5, 11

Nila, Inc. 93
Digital Sputnik Lighting

Systems 87
Disney/DreamWorks 17
Disney/Pixar 31
Glidecam Industries C3
Horita Company, Inc. 101
Jod Soraci 89
Mole-Richardson/Studio Depot
100
Movie Tech AG 100, 101
P+S Technik
Feinmechanik Gmbh 100
Panasonic System
Communications Co. 45
Panavision, Inc. 73
Paralinx 43
Panther Gmbh 50
Pille Filmgeraeteverleih
Gmbh 100
Pro8mm 100
Professional Solutions 41
Red Digital Cinema C2-1
102
Schneider Optics 2
Sim Group 75
Sony Pictures 51, 63
Super16, Inc. 101
Swit 62, 77
Technicolor 81
Teradek, LLC 33
TNS&F Productions 101
University of North Carolina
School of the Arts 49
Ushio America, Inc. 93
Warner Bros. 13, 23
Weinstein Company, The
25, 29
Welch Integrated 97
Willys Widgets 100
www.theasc.com 94, 95, 96,
100, 101, 102
2015 Index
by Cinematographer, Project Title, Format, Subject and Author
Compiled by Christopher Probst
3D
Exodus: Gods and Kings,
Jan. p. 54
Martian, The, Nov. p. 48
33, The, Dec. p. 64
35MM (SUPER 35MM LISTED
SEPARATELY)
Black Mass, Oct. p. 60
Mission: Impossible
Rogue Nation, Aug.
p. 32
Spectre, Nov. p. 34
65MM
Big Trail, The, April
p. 82
Hateful Eight, The, Dec.
p. 36
Humpback Whales, May
p. 26
Jurassic World, July
p. 44
99 Homes, Oct. p. 72
Acord, ASC, Lance, April
p. 118
Affair, The, March p. 48
Age of Adaline, The, May
p. 20
Aguilar, Nicolas, Dec. p. 14
Alberti, Maryse, Dec. p. 30
ANAMORPHIC
Age of Adaline, The,
May p. 20
Blackhat, Feb. p. 18
Chappie, April p. 36
Concrete Night, Sept.
p. 94
Dope, July p. 20
Fifty Shades of Grey,
March p. 32
Gunman, The, April
p. 30
p. 36
Hunger Games:
Mockingjay Part 2,
The, Dec. p. 78
Insurgent, April p. 54
Kingsman: The Secret
Service, March p. 20
Man From U.N.C.L.E.,
The, Sept. p. 56
Mission: Impossible
Rogue Nation, Aug.
p. 32
Most Violent Year, A,
Feb. p. 42
Selma, Feb. p. 42
Spectre, Nov. p. 32
Straight Outta Compton,
Sept. p. 38
Terminator Genisys,
Aug. p. 54
Time Out of Mind, Oct.
p. 72
Toronto 2015 Pan Am
Games, Sept. p. 14
Anderson Jr., ASC, Howard
A., Dec. p. 111
Ant-Man, Aug. p. 44
Aparajito, July p. 74
Apur Sansar, July p. 74
ASC CLOSE-UP
DuPont, Lex, Sept. p. 120
Fiore, Mauro, June
p. 116
Hurwitz, Tom, Dec.
p. 112
Joffin, Jon, May p. 96
Kenny, Francis, July
p. 88
Kiesser, Jan, Oct. p. 96
Reiker, Tami, April p. 120
Silver, Steven V., Aug.
p. 88
Szalay, Attila, Feb. p. 88
Van de Sande, Theo,
Jan. p. 96
Vargo, Mark, Nov. p. 96
Weaver, Michael, March
p. 88
Avengers: Age of Ultron,
June p. 50
Bailey, ASC, John, Jan.
p. 94; Feb. p. 54; March
p. 86; Oct. pp. 20, 94
Ballhaus, ASC, Florian, April
p. 54
Battersby, Ben, July p. 14
Blanger, CSC, Yves, Jan.
p. 76
Berger, AAC, BVK, Christian,
Dec. p. 22
Bessie, June p. 20
Best, CSC, Thom, April p. 94
Best Man Wins, Nov.

p. 14
Big Eyes, Jan. p. 30
Big Trail, The, April p. 82
BLACK-AND-WHITE
May p. 20
p. 82
p. 94
Defeat (x3), The, Dec.
p. 14
Pather Panchali, July
p. 74
Blackhat, Feb. p. 18
Brooks, Alice, Nov. p. 26
Bukowski, Bobby, Oct. p. 72
By the Sea, Dec. p. 22
Cardino, Wes, Nov. p. 14
Carol, Dec. p. 52
Carpenter, ASC, Russell,
Aug. p. 44
Cartel Land, Sept. p. 22
Chappie, April p. 36
Chimeras, Oct. p. 14
Christensen, Charlotte
Bruus, June p. 26
Churchill, ASC, Joan, June
p. 114
Clark, ASC, Curtis, June
p. 90; July p. 86
COMMERCIALS
EZ Seed, Sept. p. 14
Infinity Q50, Speed Is
Not Enough, Jan.
p. 14
Kraft Macaroni &
Cheese, Sept. p. 14
Toronto 2015 Pan Am
Games, Sept. p. 14
p. 94
Conroy, ISC, John, July
p. 32
Creed, Dec. p. 30
Critical, Oct. p. 26
Crudo, ASC, Richard, May
p. 94, June p. 114, Aug.
p. 86, Sept. p. 86, Nov.
p. 84
www.theasc.com
Daredevil, May p. 58
David, Ed C., Jan. p. 14
Davis, BSC, Ben, June p. 50
Deakins, ASC, BSC, Roger,
Jan. p. 40, Feb. p. 86,
Aug. p. 86, Oct. p. 34
Defeat (x3), The, Dec. p. 14
Delbonnel, ASC, AFC, Bruno,
Jan. p. 30
Derry, T.J., Sept. p. 14
Deschanel, ASC, Caleb, Feb.
p. 87, Aug. p. 86
Dibie, ASC, George Spiro,
July p. 86, Nov. p. 84
Dillon, PJ, March p. 57
DIRECTORS INTERVIEWED
Abraham, Phil, May p. 58
Alyamac, Ela, Sept. p. 68
Bird, Brad, June p. 66
Blomkamp, Neill, April
p. 36
Boyle, Danny, Nov. p. 62
Cooper, Scott, Oct. p. 60
Derry, T.J., Sept. p. 14
Dumonceau, Stphane,
Nov. p. 14
DuVernay, Ava, Feb. p. 42
Ellin, Doug, July p. 54
Fuqua, Antoine, Aug.
p. 64
Gray, F. Gary, Sept. p. 38
Haynes, Todd, Dec. p. 52
Heineman, Matthew,
Sept. p. 22
Helgeland, Brian, Nov.
p. 74
Holloway, Steven, Dec.
p. 14
Kember, Oliver, May p. 14
Koch, Bastiaan, Feb.
p. 14
Kormkur, Baltasar, Oct.
p. 48
Kwapis, Ken, Oct. p. 20
Leigh, Mike, Jan. p. 70
MacGillivray, Greg, May
p. 26
Mann, Michael, Feb.
p. 18
Monroe, Patrick Victor,
April p. 14
Perdeci, Aren, Sept. p. 68
Pohlad, Bill, July p. 64
Rebisz, Patryk, Aug. p. 76
December 2015
103
Reed, Peyton, Aug. p. 44

Regan, Vincent, April
p. 14
Riggen, Patricia, Dec.
p. 64
Saint-Pierre, Liam, June
p. 14
Schipper, Sebastian,
Nov. p. 20
Schwentke, Robert, April
p. 54
Scribner, Rob W., Dec.
p. 14
Shapiro, Dan, July p. 14
Stasiewicz, Brennan,
Jan. p. 14
Tarantino, Quentin, Dec.
p. 36
Taylor, Alan, Aug. p. 54
Taylor-Johnson, Sam,
March p. 32
Topaller, Alex, July p. 14
Tyldum, Morten, Jan.
p. 22
Valle, Jean-Marc, Jan.
p. 76
Villeneuve, Denis, Oct.
p. 44
Von Ancken, David, Aug.
p. 26
Wan, James, May p. 44
Doctor Who, March p. 52
DOCUMENTARIES
Cartel Land, Sept. p. 22
p. 26
Look of Silence, The,
Sept. p. 30
Shoulder the Lion, Aug.
p. 76
Warbird Pilot: Behind
the Visor, Dec. p. 14
Way of the Dodo, The,
June p. 14
Doering-Powell, ASC, Mark,
May p. 95
Dope, July p. 20
Dryburgh, ASC, NZCS,
Stuart, Feb. p. 18
DuPont, ASC, Lex, Sept.
p. 120
Eden, June p. 78
Edeson, ASC, Arthur, April
p. 82
Elswit, ASC, Robert, Aug.
p. 32
End of the Tour, The, Aug.
p. 20
Entourage, July p. 54
104
December 2015
Everest, Oct. p. 48
Ex Machina, May p. 32
Jan. p. 54
EZ Seed, Sept. p. 14
Far From the Madding
Crowd, June p. 26
Faura, scar, Jan. p. 22
Fierberg, ASC, Steven,
March p. 48, July p. 54
Fifty Shades of Grey,
March p. 32
FILMMAKERS FORUM
Harrowing Rites of
Passage, Sept.
p. 94
Reaching Tomorrows
Filmmakers Today,
Nov. p. 84
Senses Work Overtime
in Shoulder the
Lion, Aug. p. 76
Shooting a Procedural
Western in
Winnipeg, April
p. 94
Fiore, ASC, Mauro, June
p. 116, Aug. p. 64
Flinckenberg, FSC, Peter,
Sept. p. 94
Follow the Camera, Feb.
p. 14
Freeman, ASC, Jonathan,
Nov. p. 94
Friend, BSC, James, April
p. 14
Furious 7, May p. 44
Goi, ASC, ISC, Michael,
April p. 118, Oct. p. 94
Goodich, ASC, Frederic,
June p. 114, Sept. p. 94,
Oct. p. 94
Grvlen, DFF, Sturla
Brandth, Nov. p. 20
Gunman, The, April p. 30
Hall, Howard, May p. 26
Hardy, BSC, Rob, May p. 32
p. 36
Heineman, Matthew, Sept.
p. 22
HISTORICAL
Restoring The Apu
Trilogy in 4K, July
p. 74
Technicolor Celebrates
Centennial, Sept.
p. 80
Visions of Grandeur,
April p. 82
Holloway, Steven, Dec.

p. 14
p. 30
Hunger Games:
Mockingjay Part 2,
The, Dec. p. 78
Hurwitz, ASC, Tom, Dec.
p. 112
Ihre, FSF, Jakob, Aug. p. 20
IMAX
p. 26
Imitation Game, The, Jan.
p. 22
Infinity Q50, Speed Is
Not Enough, Jan.
p. 14
IN MEMORIA
Anderson Jr., ASC,
Howard A., Dec.
p. 111
Isaia, Roy, May p. 95
Lesnie, ASC, ACS,
Andrew, July p. 84
Ondrcek, ASC, ACK,
Miroslav, June p. 112
Six, ASC, Bradley B.,
Aug. p. 85
Instruments of Darkness,
April p. 14
Insurgent, April p. 54
Irola, ASC, Judy, Jan. p. 94
Jem and the Holograms,
Nov. p. 26
Joffin, ASC, Jon, May p. 96
Jupiter Ascending, Feb.
p. 28
Jur, ASC, Jeffrey, June
p. 20, Nov. p. 94
p. 44
Kember, Oliver, May p. 14
Kenny, ASC, Francis,
May p. 94, June p. 114,
July p. 88
Kiesser, ASC, Jan, Oct.
p. 96
Kingsman: The Secret
Service, March p. 20
Kitchens, Benjamin, Aug.
p. 14
Koch, Bastiaan, Feb. p. 14
Kraft Macaroni &
Cheese, Sept. p. 14
Kchler, BSC, Alwin, Nov.
p. 62
Kuras, ASC, Ellen, April
p. 68
Labiano, Flavio, April p. 30

Lachman, ASC, Ed, June
p. 114; Dec. pp. 52, 110
La Fountaine, ASC,
Christian, March p. 86
Lanzenberg, David, May
p. 20
Laskus, ASC, Jacek, June
p. 114
LaVasseur, Chris, Aug. p. 26
Legend, Nov. p. 74
Lenoir, ASC, AFC, Denis,
June p. 78
Leonetti, ASC, Matthew,
Feb. p. 64
Lesnie, ASC, ACS, Andrew,
July p. 84
Levy, Sam, April p. 22
Libatique, ASC, Matthew,
Sept. p. 38
Lighthill, ASC, Stephen,
June p. 114
LIGHTING DIAGRAMS
Jupiter Ascending, Feb.
p. 28
Sicario, Oct. p. 38
Southpaw, Aug. p. 71
Spectre, Nov. p. 38
Steve Jobs, Nov. p. 65
Sept. p. 43
Little Chaos, A, April p. 68
Little Favour, April p. 14
Lloyd, CSC, Matthew, May
p. 58
Logan, ASC, Bruce, Oct.
p. 94
Look of Silence, The,
Sept. p. 30
Lost Birds, Sept. p. 68
Love & Mercy, July p. 64
Mad Max: Fury Road,
June p. 32
Man From U.N.C.L.E.,
The, Sept. p. 56
Mankofsky, ASC, Isidore,
June p. 114
Manley, ASC, Christopher,
July p. 26
Mathieson, BSC, John,
Sept. p. 56
McGarvey, ASC, BSC,
Seamus, March p. 32
McPolin, ISC, Owen, July
p. 32
Mheux, BSC, Phil, Feb.
p. 72
Miranda, ASC, Claudio,
June p. 66
Mission: Impossible
Rogue Nation, Aug.
p. 32
Mommy, Feb. p. 22
Morgenthau, ASC, Kramer,
Aug. p. 54
Morrison, Rachel, July
p. 20
Most Violent Year, A,
Feb. p. 42
Mr. Turner, Jan. p. 66
MUSIC VIDEOS
Paolo Nutini, Iron Sky,
March p. 14
Myrna the Monster, Aug.
p. 14
NEW ASC ASSOCIATES
Brodersen, Michael,
Sept. p. 118
Cayzer, Martin, April
p. 118
McDonald, Dennis, Feb.
p. 86
Phillips, Tyler, Jan. p. 94
Pruss, Douglas, March
p. 86
Shipman-Mueller, Marc,
Sept. p. 118
Sim, Rob, April p. 118
Tomlinson, Matthew,
Oct. p. 94
Weigert, Marc, Sept.
p. 118
NEW ASC MEMBERS
Doering-Powell, Mark,
May p. 95
La Fountaine, Christian,
March p. 86
Sedillo, Joaquin, April
p. 118
Takayanagi, Masanobu,
Nov. p. 94
Wiegand, Lisa, Feb.
p. 86
Willems, Jo, Aug. p. 86
Windon, Stephen F.,
Sept. p. 118
Yedlin, Steve, Dec.
p. 110
Young, Bradford, Oct.
p. 94
Nowell, ASC, David, June
p. 114
Ohlund, Brad, May p. 26
Ondrcek, ASC, ACK,
Miroslav, June p. 112
Opaloch, Trent, April p. 36
Palmer, BSC, Tim, Oct.
p. 26

March p. 14
p. 74
Penny Dreadful, July
p. 32
Perdeci, Aren, Sept. p. 68
Pinkertons, The, April
p. 94
Pope, BSC, Dick, Jan. p. 66,
Nov. p. 74
Porwoll, Matthew, Sept.
p. 22
POSTPRODUCTION
Another Vintage Tool,
Dec. p. 40
HPA Salutes ASC CDL,
2014 Achievements,
Jan. p. 84
Making the Most of
Disparate Displays,
Aug. p. 74
Restoring The Apu
Trilogy in 4K, July
p. 74
Stewards of
Technology, June
p. 90
Centennial, Sept.
p. 80
PRESERVATION/RESTORATION
p. 82
p. 74
Puzzled, May p. 14
Rebisz, Patryk, Aug. p. 76
Reiker, ASC, Tami, April
p. 120
Richardson, ASC, Robert,
Dec. p. 36
Richmond, George, March
p. 20
Rinaldi, AIC, Carlo, Oct.
p. 14
Roe, ASC, Bill, March p. 62
Run, Dec. p. 14
Ryan, BSC, Robbie, March
p. 14
Saint-Pierre, Liam, June
p. 14
Schaefer, ASC, AIC,
Roberto, Nov. p. 94
Schreiber, Nancy, ASC,
Dec. p. 110
Schwartzman, ASC, John,
July p. 44
Scribner, Rob W., Dec. p. 14

Seale, ASC, ACS, John,
June p. 26
Secret Life of Marilyn
Monroe, The, July
p. 26
Sedillo, ASC, Joaquin, April
p. 118
Selma, Feb. p. 42
She Wolf, July p. 14
Shoulder the Lion, Aug.
p. 76
Sicario, Oct. p. 34
Silver, ASC, Steven V., Aug.
p. 88
Six, ASC, Bradley B., Aug.
p. 85
Skree, Lars, Sept. p. 22
Southpaw, Aug. p. 64
SPECIALIZED CINEMATOGRAPHY
Ant-Man, Aug. p. 44
p. 82
Jan. p. 54
p. 36
p. 26
SPECIAL VENUE
p. 82
p. 36
p. 26
Spectre, Nov. p. 34
Spicer, ACS, Marc, May
p. 44
Spinotti, ASC, AIC, Dante,
Dec. p. 110
Sept. p. 38
SUPER 16MM
May p. 20
Carol, Dec. p. 52
Love & Mercy, July
p. 64
SUPER 35MM
End of the Tour, The,
Aug. p. 20
Entourage, July p. 54
Far From the Madding
Crowd, June p. 26
Furious 7, May p. 44
www.theasc.com
Imitation Game, The,

Jan. p. 22
p. 44
Little Chaos, A, April
p. 68
Love & Mercy, July
p. 64
Mommy, Feb. p. 22
March p. 14
Spectre, Nov. p. 34
Walk in the Woods, A,
Oct. p. 20
Suschitzky, ASC, Peter, Nov.
p. 94
Szalay, ASC, Attila, Feb.
p. 88
Takayanagi, ASC,
Masanobu, Oct. p. 60,
Nov. p. 94
Taylor, Rory, March p. 52
TELEVISION
Affair, The, March p. 48
Bessie, June p. 20
Critical, Oct. p. 26
Daredevil, May p. 58
Doctor Who, March
p. 52
Feeling the Light,
March p. 62
Penny Dreadful, July
p. 32
Pinkertons, The, April
p. 94
Secret Life of Marilyn
Monroe, The, July
p. 26
Tut, Aug. p. 26
Vikings, March p. 57
Terminator Genisys, Aug.
p. 54
Time Out of Mind, Oct.
p. 72
Toll, ASC, John, Feb. p. 28
Tomorrowland, June p. 66
Toronto 2015 Pan Am
Games, Sept. p. 14
Totino, ASC, AIC, Salvatore,
Oct. p. 48
Turpin, Andr, Feb. p. 22
Tut, Aug. p. 26
Unbroken, Jan. p. 40
Van de Sande, ASC, Theo,
Jan. p. 96
Van Hoytema, FSF, NSC,
Hoyte, Nov. p. 34
Van Oostrum, ASC, Kees,
May p. 95
December 2015
105
Varese, ASC, Checco,

March p. 86, Dec. p. 64
Vargo, ASC, Mark, Nov.
p. 96
Victoria, Nov. p. 20
Vikings, March p. 57
Walk, The, Nov. p. 48
Walker, ASC, ACS, Mandy,
Feb. p. 86
Walk in the Woods, A,
Oct. p. 20
Warbird Pilot: Behind
the Visor, Dec. p. 14
Way of the Dodo, The,
June p. 14
Weaver, ASC, Michael,
March p. 88
Wexler, ASC, Haskell, June
p. 114
While Were Young, April
p. 22
Wiegand, ASC, Lisa, Feb.
p. 86
Wild, Jan. p. 76
Willems, ASC, SBC, Jo,
Aug. p. 86, Dec. p. 78
Windon, ASC, ACS,
Stephen, May p. 44,
Sept. p. 118
Wolski, ASC, Dariusz, Jan.
p. 54, Nov. p. 48
Yedlin, ASC, Steve, Dec.
p. 110
Yeoman, ASC, Robert, June
p. 114, July p. 64
Young, ASC, Bradford, Feb.
p. 42, Oct. p. 94, Dec.
p. 110
Zielinski, ASC, PSC, Jerzy,
Oct. p. 94
Zsigmond, ASC, Vilmos,
June p. 114, Oct. p. 94
Index by Author
Apuzzo, Jason
Visions of Grandeur,
April p. 82
Barnes, Kevin
Beneath the Surface,
July p. 26
Bergery, Benjamin
A Collaboration Among
Vendors, Nov. p. 44
Eloquence Through
Art, Jan. p. 66
Lighting Sicarios
Opening Sequence,
Oct. p. 38
106
December 2015
Lighting the Austrian

Spa, Nov. p. 38
Mike Leighs Method,
Jan. p. 70
Over the Line, Oct.
p. 34
Reviving Ultra
Panavision 70, Dec.
p. 46
Sinister Sect, Nov.
p. 34
Villeneuves Vision,
Oct. p. 44
Wild One, Feb. p. 22
Best, CSC, Thom
Shooting a Procedural
Western in
Winnipeg, April
p. 94
Bosley, Rachael K.
In Memoriam, June
p. 112
Calhoun, John
Confronting the
Enemy, Sept. p. 30
New York Story, April
p. 22
Spirit Animals, July
p. 14
Dillon, Mark
Avengers Re-Assemble, June p. 50
Electric Hero, April
p. 36
Endgame, Dec. p. 78
Harmony and Discord,
July p. 64
Majestic Mammals,
May p. 26
Slave to Love, March
p. 32
Time Travelers, Aug.
p. 54
Unholy Alliance, Oct.
p. 60
Wandering Spirit, Jan.
p. 76
Fish, Andrew
Enduring Luminary,
Feb. p. 64
HPA Salutes ASC CDL,
2014 Achievements,
Jan. p. 84
Meeting of Minds,
Aug. p. 20
Mole-Richardson
Relocates to the
Valley, Oct. p. 84
Friend, BSC, James

Shooting Back-to-Back
Shorts, April p. 14
Goldman, Michael
Accelerated Action,
May p. 44
Another Vintage Tool,
Dec. p. 40
Crudos Challenge,
Sept. p. 86
Going Rogue, Aug.
p. 32
Hunting Down
Hackers, Feb. p. 18
Picturing Tomorrow,
June p. 66
Secret Agent Men,
March p. 20
Centennial, Sept.
p. 80
A Wider World, April
p. 54
Wide Wide West,
Dec. p. 36
Gray, Simon
In Memoriam, July
p. 84
Max Intensity, June
p. 32
Holben, Jay
Blood Feud, Jan.
p. 54
Celebrating Art and
Science, May p. 68
Making Monsters,
July p. 44
A Pitiless Peak, Oct.
p. 48
Hope-Jones, Mark
British Vision, Feb.
p. 72
Kadner, Noah
Dancing in Dystopia,
March p. 14
High-Tech Protection,
Feb. p. 14
An Immersive
Collaboration, Nov.
p. 70
Macro Heroics, Aug.
p. 44
Thinking Different,
Nov. p. 62
Without Fear, May
p. 58
Kaufman, Debra
The Boys Are Back,
July p. 54
Outside the Box,

March p. 48
Personal Battles, Aug.
p. 64
Reaching Tomorrows
Filmmakers Today,
Nov. p. 84
Restoring The Apu
Trilogy in 4K, July
p. 74
Society Honors
Heritage Award
Recipients, Dec.
p. 14
Stewards of
Technology, June
p. 90
Matsumoto, Neil
The Greatest
Landscape, Oct.
p. 20
The Next Generation,
Dec. p. 30
Outrageous Fortune,
Nov. p. 26
Sweet Revenge, Nov.
p. 14
Mulcahey, Matt
Monstrous Deeds,
Oct. p. 14
Nakamura, Stephen
Making the Most of
Disparate Displays,
Aug. p. 74
Oppenheimer, Jean
Darkest Days, Dec.
p. 64
Feeling the Light,
March p. 62
Harrowing Rites of
Passage, Sept.
p. 94
Pastoral Romance,
June p. 26
Star-Crossed Love,
April p. 68
Ultimate Survivor,
Jan. p. 40
Youth Without End,
May p. 20
Pizzello, Stephen
Canon Expo Touts
Companys Current,
Future Technologies,
Dec. p. 90
Rebisz, Patryk
Senses Work Overtime
in Shoulder the
Lion, Aug. p. 76
Rhodes, Phil
Alien Encounter,
Aug. p. 14
Complex Procedures,
Oct. p. 26
Counterparts in
Crime, Nov. p. 74
Gleaming the Cube,
May p. 14
The Need for Speed,
Jan. p. 14
Outside the Box,
March p. 52
Re-Creating the Boy
Kings Reign, Aug.
p. 26
Small-Gauge
Shangri-La, June
p. 14
Superspy Alliance,
Sept. p. 56
Testing a Camera With
a Trio of Commercials, Sept. p. 14
Tortured Souls, July
p. 32
Silberg, Jon
The Accidental
Cinematographer,
Feb. p. 54
Stasukevich, Iain
A Blues-Infused
Biopic, June p. 20
Boundless Strife,
Sept. p. 22
Globetrotting for The
Gunman, April p. 30
A Mid-Century Affair,
Dec. p. 52
More Than Human,
May p. 32
Outside the Box,
March p. 57
Reclaiming Art, Jan.
p. 30
Trapped in a Groove,
June p. 78
Thomson, Patricia
Decoding a Legacy,
Jan. p. 22
Desperate Times,
Oct. p. 72
Hip-Hop Heist, July
p. 20
Single-Take Heist,
Nov. p. 20
Times of Strife, Feb.
p. 42
Williams, David E.
Questions of
Perspective, Nov.
p. 48
Reflections on a
Marriage, Dec.
p. 22
Street Knowledge,
Sept. p. 38
Witmer, Jon D.
High-Flying Heroics,
Feb. p. 28
In Memoria, Aug. p. 85,
Dec. p. 111
Lost and Found, Sept.
p. 68
STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP,
MANAGEMENT AND CIRCULATION
Title of publication:
AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER
Publication no. 0002-7928
Date of filing: October 30, 2015
Frequency of issue: Monthly
Annual subscription price: $50
Number of issues published annually: 12
Location of known office of publication:
1782 N. Orange Dr., Hollywood, CA 90028.
Location of the headquarters or general business offices of the
publishers: Same as above.
Names and address of publisher: ASC Holding Corp., 1782 N. Orange Dr.,
Hollywood, CA 90028; Editor-in-Chief and Publisher, Stephen Pizzello, 1782
N. Orange Dr., Hollywood, CA 90028. Owner: ASC Holding Corp.
Known bondholders, mortgages, and other security holders owning
or holding 1 per cent or more of total amount of bonds, mortgages or
other securities: same as above.
Extent and nature of circulation: Total numbers of copies printed (net
press run): average number of copies each issue during preceding 12
months, 34,125; actual number copies of single issue published nearest to
filing date, 39,500.
Paid and/or requested circulation: Paid/Requested Outside-County Mail
Subscriptions stated on Form 3541: average number of copies each issue
during preceding 12 months, 27,042; actual number of copies of single issue
published nearest to filing date, 27,500.
Paid and/or requested circulation: Sales through dealers and carriers,
street vendors and counter sales, and other non-USPS paid distribution: average number copies each issue during preceding 12 months, 5,682; actual
number of copies single issue published nearest to filing date, 10,000.
Total paid and/or requested circulation: average number copies each
issue during preceding 12 months, 32,724; actual number copies of single
issue published nearest to filing date, 37,500.
Nonrequested copies distributed outside the mail (samples, complimentary and other free copies): average number of copies each issue
during preceding 12 months, 1,126; actual number copies of single issue
Total nonrequested distributions: average number of copies each issue
during preceding 12 months, 1,126; actual number copies of single issue
Total distribution: average number of copies each issue during preceding
12 months, 33,850; actual number of copies of single issue published nearest
to filing date, 39,000.
Copies not distributed (office use, left over, unaccounted, spoiled
after printing): average number of copies each issue during preceding 12
months, 275; actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to
filing date, 500.
Total: average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months,
34,125; actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing
date, 39,500.
Percent Paid and/or Requested Circulation: average number of copies
each issue during preceding 12 months, 97%; actual number of copies of
single issue published nearest to filing date, 96%.
I certify that the statements made by me above are correct and complete.
Brett Grauman, General Manager
www.theasc.com
December 2015
107
American Society of Cinematographers Roster

OFFICERS 2015-16
Richard Crudo,
President
Owen Roizman,
Vice President
Kees van Oostrum,
Vice President
Lowell Peterson,
Vice President
Matthew Leonetti,
Treasurer
Frederic Goodich,
Secretary
Isidore Mankofsky,
Sergeant-at-Arms
MEMBERS
OF THE BOARD
John Bailey
Bill Bennett
Richard Crudo
George Spiro Dibie
Richard Edlund
Fred Elmes
Michael Goi
Victor J. Kemper
Daryn Okada
Lowell Peterson
Robert Primes
Owen Roizman
Rodney Taylor
Kees van Oostrum
Haskell Wexler
ALTERNATES
Isidore Mankofsky
Kenneth Zunder
Francis Kenny
John C. Flinn III
108
December 2015
ACTIVE MEMBERS
Thomas Ackerman
Lance Acord
Marshall Adams
Javier Aguirresarobe
Lloyd Ahern II
Russ Alsobrook
Howard A. Anderson III
James Anderson
Peter Anderson
Tony Askins
Christopher Baffa
James Bagdonas
King Baggot
John Bailey
Florian Ballhaus
Michael Ballhaus
Michael Barrett
Andrzej Bartkowiak
John Bartley
Bojan Bazelli
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David Moxness
M. David Mullen
Dennis Muren
Fred Murphy
Hiro Narita
Guillermo Navarro
Michael B. Negrin
Sol Negrin
Bill Neil
Alex Nepomniaschy
John Newby
Yuri Neyman
Sam Nicholson
Crescenzo Notarile
David B. Nowell
Rene Ohashi
Daryn Okada
Thomas Olgeirsson
Woody Omens
Michael D. OShea
Vince Pace
Anthony Palmieri
Phedon Papamichael
Daniel Pearl
Brian Pearson
Edward J. Pei
D E C E M B E R
James Pergola
Dave Perkal
Lowell Peterson
Wally Pfister
Sean MacLeod Phillips
Bill Pope
Steven Poster
Tom Priestley Jr.
Rodrigo Prieto
Robert Primes
Frank Prinzi
Cynthia Pusheck
Richard Quinlan
Declan Quinn
Earl Rath
Richard Rawlings Jr.
Frank Raymond
Tami Reiker
Robert Richardson
Anthony B. Richmond
Tom Richmond
Bill Roe
Owen Roizman
Pete Romano
Giuseppe Rotunno
Philippe Rousselot
Juan Ruiz-Anchia
Marvin Rush
Paul Ryan
Eric Saarinen
Alik Sakharov
Mikael Salomon
Paul Sarossy
Roberto Schaefer
Tobias Schliessler
Aaron Schneider
Nancy Schreiber
Fred Schuler
John Schwartzman
John Seale
Christian Sebaldt
Joaquin Sedillo
Dean Semler
Ben Seresin
Eduardo Serra
Steven Shaw
Lawrence Sher
Richard Shore
Newton Thomas Sigel
Steven V. Silver
John Simmons
Sandi Sissel
Santosh Sivan
Bradley B. Six
Michael Slovis
Dennis L. Smith
Roland Ozzie Smith
Reed Smoot
Bing Sokolsky
Peter Sova
Dante Spinotti
Buddy Squires
2 0 1 5
Terry Stacey
Eric Steelberg
Ueli Steiger
Peter Stein
Tom Stern
Robert M. Stevens
David Stockton
Rogier Stoffers
Vittorio Storaro
Harry Stradling Jr.
David Stump
Tim Suhrstedt
Peter Suschitzky
Attila Szalay
Masanobu Takayanagi
Jonathan Taylor
Rodney Taylor
William Taylor
Don Thorin Sr.
Romeo Tirone
John Toll
Mario Tosi
Salvatore Totino
Luciano Tovoli
Jost Vacano
Stijn van der Veken
Theo van de Sande
Eric van Haren Noman
Kees van Oostrum
Checco Varese
Ron Vargas
Mark Vargo
Amelia Vincent
William Wages
Roy H. Wagner
Mandy Walker
Michael Watkins
Michael Weaver
William Billy Webb
Jonathan West
Haskell Wexler
Jack Whitman
Lisa Wiegand
Jo Willems
Stephen F. Windon
Dariusz Wolski
Ralph Woolsey
Peter Wunstorf
Steve Yedlin
Robert Yeoman
Bradford Young
Richard Yuricich
Jerzy Zielinski
Vilmos Zsigmond
Kenneth Zunder
ASSOCIATE MEMBERS
Pete Abel
Rich Abel
Alan Albert
Richard Aschman
Kay Baker
Joseph J. Ball
Amnon Band
Carly M. Barber
Craig Barron
Thomas M. Barron
Larry Barton
Wolfgang Baumler
Bob Beitcher
Mark Bender
Bruce Berke
Bob Bianco
Steven A. Blakely
Joseph Bogacz
Jill Bogdanowicz
Mitchell Bogdanowicz
Jens Bogehegn
Michael Bravin
Simon Broad
Michael Brodersen
William Brodersen
Garrett Brown
Terry Brown
Reid Burns
Vincent Carabello
Jim Carter
Martin Cayzer
Leonard Chapman
Mark Chiolis
Michael Cioni
Denny Clairmont
Adam Clark
Cary Clayton
Dave Cole
Michael Condon
Grover Crisp
Peter Crithary
Daniel Curry
Marc Dando
Ross Danielson
Carlos D. DeMattos
Gary Demos
Mato Der Avanessian
Kevin Dillon
David Dodson
Judith Doherty
Peter Doyle
Cyril Drabinsky
Jesse Dylan
Jonathan Erland
Ray Feeney
William Feightner
Phil Feiner
Jimmy Fisher
Thomas Fletcher
Claude Gagnon
Salvatore Giarratano
John A. Gresch
Jim Hannafin
Bill Hansard Jr.
Lisa Harp
Richard Hart
Robert Harvey
Michael Hatzer
Josh Haynie
Fritz Heinzle
Charles Herzfeld
Larry Hezzelwood
Frieder Hochheim
Bob Hoffman
Vinny Hogan
Cliff Hsui
Robert C. Hummel
Zo Iltsopoulos-Borys
Jim Jannard
George Joblove
Joel Johnson
Eric Johnston
John Johnston
Mike Kanfer
Marker Karahadian
Frank Kay
Debbie Kennard
Glenn Kennel
Milton Keslow
Robert Keslow
Lori Killam
Douglas Kirkland
Mark Kirkland
Scott Klein
Timothy J. Knapp
Franz Kraus
Karl Kresser
Chet Kucinski
Jarred Land
Chuck Lee
Doug Leighton
Lou Levinson
Suzanne Lezotte
Grant Loucks
Howard Lukk
Andy Maltz
Gary Mandle
Steven E. Manios Jr.
Steven E. Manios Sr.
Chris Mankofsky
Michael Mansouri
Frank Marsico
Peter Martin
Robert Mastronardi
Joe Matza
Albert Mayer Jr.
Bill McDonald
Dennis McDonald
Karen McHugh
Andy McIntyre
Stan Miller
Walter H. Mills
George Milton
Mike Mimaki
Michael Morelli
Dash Morrison
Nolan Murdock
Dan Muscarella
Iain A. Neil
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Otto Nemenz
Ernst Nettmann
Tony Ngai
Jeff Okun
Marty Oppenheimer
Walt Ordway
Ahmad Ouri
Michael Parker
Dhanendra Patel
Elliot Peck
Kristin Petrovich
Ed Phillips
Nick Phillips
Tyler Phillips
Joshua Pines
Carl Porcello
Sherri Potter
Howard Preston
Sarah Priestnall
David Pringle
Doug Pruss
Phil Radin
David Reisner
Christopher Reyna
Colin Ritchie
Eric G. Rodli
Domenic Rom
Andy Romanoff
Frederic Rose
Daniel Rosen
Dana Ross
Bill Russell
Chris Russo
Kish Sadhvani
David Samuelson
Dan Sasaki
Steve Schklair
Peter K. Schnitzler
Walter Schonfeld
Wayne Schulman
Alexander Schwarz
Juergen Schwinzer
Steven Scott
Alec Shapiro
Don Shapiro
Milton R. Shefter
Marc Shipman-Mueller
Leon Silverman
Rob Sim
Garrett Smith
Timothy E. Smith
Kimberly Snyder
Stefan Sonnenfeld
John L. Sprung
Joseph N. Tawil
Ira Tiffen
Steve Tiffen
Matthew Tomlinson
Arthur Tostado
Jeffrey Treanor
Bill Turner
Stephan Ukas-Bradley
Mark van Horne

Dedo Weigert
Marc Weigert
Steve Weiss
Alex Wengert
Evans Wetmore
Franz Wieser
Beverly Wood
Jan Yarbrough
Hoyt Yeatman
Irwin M. Young
Michael Zacharia
Bob Zahn
Nazir Zaidi
Michael Zakula
Les Zellan
HONORARY MEMBERS
Col. Edwin E. Aldrin Jr.
Col. Michael Collins
Bob Fisher
David MacDonald
Cpt. Bruce McCandless II
Larry Mole Parker
D. Brian Spruill
Marek Zydowicz
December 2015
109
Clubhouse News
Steve Yedlin, ASC.
Society Welcomes Yedlin

New active member Steve Yedlin,
ASC is a longtime friend and collaborator of
writer-director Rian Johnson. They began
working together as teenagers, making
homemade short films such as Thesaurus
Thief and Hey Lady, You Dropped Your
Wallet. Their talents have since evolved with
the features Brick (AC May 05), The Brothers
Bloom and Looper (AC Oct. 12), and they are
teaming again on the upcoming Star Wars
Episode VIII, which is scheduled to hit theaters
in May 2017.
When hes not working with Johnson,
Yedlin enjoys exploring the flexibility of his
craft with a variety of directors and projects.
His diverse work includes intense indie dramas
such as The Other Woman, visual-effects
spectacles like San Andreas, comedies including Danny Collins, horror films such as Carrie
(2013), and the occasional documentary.
Yedlin is also pursuing an ongoing
personal project to study the finer nuances of
image science and the development of his
own custom methods for the mathematical
modeling of physical photochemical
processes in order to better emulate traditional film response with digitally acquired
images.
110
December 2015
Lachman Receives
Marburg Camera Award
Ed Lachman, ASC was recently
awarded the 2015 Marburger Kamerapreis, also known as the Marburg
Camera Award, which is presented annually by the Philipp University of Marburg
and the town of Marburg, Germany. The
prize is given in recognition of outstanding
national and international artwork in film
and television. The award winner is
decided by an advisory board and
announced at the beginning of the winter
semester. Lachman is the first American to
receive the honor.
Spinotti Honored at
Middleburg Film Fest
Dante Spinotti, ASC, AIC
recently received Middleburg Film Festivals Distinguished Cinematographer
Award. Held in Middleburg, Va., the festival began in 2013 and strives to showcase
boundary-pushing and convention-challenging independent films. Every year, the
festival pays tribute to a cinematographer
and film composer; Spinotti was feted
with composer Carter Burwell. While
attending the festival, Spinotti also
presented his latest feature, I Saw the
Light.
Schreiber Joins
NYC Speaker Series
Nancy Schreiber, ASC recently
joined several other cinematographers
onstage for Manhattan Edit Workshops
Sight, Sound & Story: The Art of Cinematography at the NYIT Auditorium. The
event included two panel discussions: The
Many Challenges of Nonfiction Cinematography, featuring Jerry Ricciotti, Matt
Porwoll and Bob Richman, and A Cinematographers Vision: Creating Distinct
Looks for Film & TV, featuring Schreiber
and Paul Koestner.
AC Wins Folio: Honors
American Cinematographer won
two Folio: Eddie Awards for editorial excellence during the Folio: Shows awards
luncheon, held in New York City on Oct. 19.
In the Media/Entertainment/Publishing category, the September 2014 issue (featuring
Guardians of the Galaxy) won Best Full
Issue, and Jason Apuzzo's historical article
on the 70mm Grandeur production The Big
Trail ("Visions of Grandeur," April 15) took
top honors for Best Single Article. The
magazine earned three other nominations,
as well. The October 14 tribute to the late
Gordon Willis, ASC earned an honorable
mention for Full Issue, while managing
editor Jon D. Witmers piece on Jupiter
Ascending (High-Flying Heroics, Feb. 15)
and Jean Oppenheimers coverage of Birdman (Backstage Drama, Dec. 14)
received nods for Single Article.
Photo of Clubhouse by Isidore Mankofsky, ASC; lighting by Donald M. Morgan, ASC.
Young Named Kodak

Cinematographer-in-Residence
at UCLA
Bradford Young, ASC has been
named the 2015-16 Kodak Cinematographer-in-Residence at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Theater,
Film and Television. Youngs residency will
begin in December and will last 10 weeks.
This is the 16th year of the Kodak Cinematographer-in-Residence
program.
Previous participants have included ASC
members Mandy Walker, John Bailey,
Stephen H. Burum, Dean Cundey, Joan
Churchill, Roger Deakins, Guillermo
Navarro and Dante Spinotti.
In Memoriam
Photo courtesy of the ASC archives.
Howard A. Anderson Jr., ASC, 1920-2015
Visual-effects legend Howard A.

Anderson Jr., ASC who contributed
effects work to such projects as the
features Jack the Giant Killer (1962),
Blazing Saddles and Superman: The
Movie, and the series I Love Lucy, Star
Trek and The A-Team died on Sept.
27. He was 95.
Anderson was born on March 31,
1920, in Los Angeles, where his father,
Howard Sr., worked as an early pioneer
in visual effects. Howard Sr. had served in
the U.S. Navy during World War I, and
Howard Jr. followed in his footsteps, joining the Navy Reserve while still in high
school and participating in the Navy
ROTC program at UCLA, where he spent
two years as a math major. He left school
in 1940, applied for a film-loader permit,
and then began assisting with the
photography of inserts, titles, mattes,
miniatures, opticals and location work.
The next year, Anderson married
his high-school sweetheart, LaVonne
Mason; together, they would have four
children. In 1942, Anderson began shooting
industrial films, including training and information films for Douglas Aircraft. He shot 18
films before going into active duty with the
Navy in 1943, serving as a photographic
specialist and eventually being assigned to
the Photo Service Depot in Hollywood.
In 1946, after his discharge from the
Navy following the conclusion of World War
II, Anderson joined his brother Darrell and
their father to form the Howard A. Anderson Co., the successor to the Howard A.
Anderson Special Photographic Effects Co.,
which the senior Anderson had established
in 1927. In working at the company,
Howard Jr. told AC in a profile for the March
2004 issue, I was blessed to have an opportunity to work with a lot of creative people.
A particular highlight was the companys
collaboration with Desilu Productions. We
did all of the opticals for I Love Lucy in 1951,
including titles, mattes and second-unit
work, Anderson said.
The collaboration with Desilu contin-
ued on the original Star Trek television

series. In the October 1967 issue of AC,
Anderson who was then serving as president of the Howard A. Anderson Co.
detailed the work that his company put into
the show. (The Westheimer Co. and Film
Effects of Hollywood also contributed to the
series effects.) Anderson wrote, Our
contributions to the photographic special
effects for Star Trek fall into three principal areas: 1. The design and building of the
miniature of the spaceship, the U.S.S. Enterprise. 2. The creation of the effect of traveling through space at speeds beyond
comprehension. 3. The de-materialization
and re-materialization effects in the transport chamber of the Enterprise.
For the transporter effect, he
went on to detail, we added another
element [to the mattes and dissolves]: a glitter effect in the de-materialization and rematerialization. To obtain the glitter effect,
we used aluminum dust falling through a
beam of high-intensity light. This was
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photographed on one of our stages at

our Fairfax Avenue plant.
Anderson received an Emmy nomination for his companys work on Star
Trek, as well as an Emmy nomination for
his contributions to the series My World
and Welcome to It. He was also nominated for an Oscar for the feature
Tobruk. In 1993, Howard Jr.s son,
Howard A. Anderson III who has since
also become an ASC member took
the reins as president of the Howard A.
Anderson Co.
Howard Jr. officially joined the ranks
of ASC membership on Jan. 10, 1962,
after being proposed by Society
members Arthur C. Miller and Robert de
Grasse. He went on to participate on a
number of committees in addition to
serving as treasurer, secretary and an
alternate member of the Board of Governors. In 2004, the Society presented
Anderson with its Presidents Award,
given in recognition of his extraordinary
and enduring contributions to the art of
filmmaking.
I remember my father telling me he
had the worlds best life, Anderson told
AC. He saw the advent of the electric light,
the locomotive and the airplane, the
cinema, radio and television. I believe the
future will bring challenges and opportunities that are beyond the scope of our imagination today. Thats the way it has always
been.
The secret is that you have to love
what you do, he concluded, and you
must strive to do it the best that it possibly
can be done.
Anderson is survived by three children, 12 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren.
Jon D. Witmer
December 2015
111
Tom Hurwitz, ASC
When you were a child, what film made the strongest impression
on you?
When I was about 10, I dont know why, but my mother took me to see
Ingmar Bergmans The Seventh Seal. Just as one would expect, I had
nightmares for months. But I never forgot any image that Gunnar Fischer
shot for Bergman. The frames were engraved in my mind. I intuitively
understood the power of cinematography to make images that create a
world of meaning.
Which cinematographers, past or present, do you most admire?
Goodness! That is almost as hard as picking a favorite
film. Im sure Im going to leave many, many out. For
features in no particular order [ASC members]
Gregg Toland, James Wong Howe, Arthur Edeson,
Haskell Wexler, Gordy Willis, Peter Suschitzky, Roger
Deakins, Philippe Rousselot, Conrad Hall, Boris Kaufman,
Owen Roizman. And for docs, Roman Karmen, Paul
Strand, Al Maysles, Don Lenzer, Bob Richman, Andy
Young.
What sparked your interest in photography?
As a kid, looking at the photo book The Family of Man.
In it, I first saw the work of the great still documentarians, including Henri Cartier-Bresson, Helen Levitt,
Dorothea Lange and W. Eugene Smith. Later, Garry Winogrand. I think I
first understood the power of documentary cinematography when I saw
the work of Paul Strand, who shot my fathers watershed documentary
feature, Native Land (1942). Its still a masterpiece.
Where did you train and/or study?
I really wanted to get a liberal-arts education which I would recommend for anyone making films, especially documentaries so I went to
Columbia. Also, my young adulthood coincided with the Vietnam War;
my experience organizing to end it, in all sorts of communities, helped
me to understand the grandeur in everyday people.
Who were your early teachers or mentors?
My first mentor was my father, the documentary director Leo Hurwitz,
who taught me that understanding editing was the key to cinematography. I worked with director Robert M. Young on one of my first
features; he had come out of documentaries and shot people in a
wonderful way. In documentaries, I assisted Don Lenzer and Bob
Elfstrom I learned from them and many others.
What are some of your key artistic influences?
I love to look at paintings. Just a sampling of favorites: medieval icons,
Northern Renaissance masters; Italians like Duccio and Fra Angelico; then
Vermeer, Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Goya; the Dutch landscape painters;
the French like David, Utrillo and Degas; then Hopper, Eakins, even
Arshile Gorky.
112
December 2015
How did you get your first break in the business?

There were so many breaks and chances. I think that every good career
is full of lucky challenges. Starting out, I was standing on a corner in
Manhattan, talking to a friend, and a cameraman she knew walked up.
Did she know any assistants who could work the next day? His had
gotten sick. I worked with him for the next year.
What has been your most satisfying moment on a project?
In documentaries, catching the dnouement as it happens, in one shot,
composed and in the right light. I have shot some of those. They are like
grace.
Have you made any memorable blunders?
My first day as a cameraman. I was very young. The
cinematographer had gone on to another job and left
me to finish the last day. I made every mistake possible
and I lost a client but I learned not to make them
again.
What is the best professional advice youve ever
received?
Always listen to the story. Great cameramen use their
ears as well as their eyes.
What recent books, films or artworks have inspired you?
Docs: Winter Nomads, The Overnighters. Features: Leviathan, Ida. Plays:
Wolf Hall. Opera: The Nose.
Do you have any favorite genres, or genres you would like to
try?
Im currently shooting documentary features or television series that
involve modern dance, boxing, a hospital, and the biography of a great
woman. I just finished one about a man trying to save the last free tigers
on Earth. Working on the challenges ahead is enough for me.
If you werent a cinematographer, what might you be doing
instead?
We have the best job in the world. When Im not shooting, Im teaching
young filmmakers at a great program, MFA in Social Documentary at
the School of Visual Arts in New York.
Which ASC cinematographers recommended you for membership?
Haskell Wexler, Nancy Schreiber, Fred Murphy, Joan Churchill.
How has ASC membership impacted your life and career?
As one of the first documentary cinematographers to be admitted, I was
proud that our area of this great art and craft was being recognized.
Photo by Sarah Shatz.
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An International Publication of the ASC

Wide Wide West

Ed Lachman, ASC captures forbidden love on

Jo Willems, ASC, SBC wraps a popular franchise

An International Publication of the ASC

Parallax View: Weekly Interviews with ASC Members

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Photo by Owen Roizman, ASC.

A merry Christmas and happy Hanukkah to all!

Photo by Dana Phillip Ross.

Society Honors Heritage Award Recipients

The ASCs Gordon Willis Student Heritage Awards were

film in Adobe Premiere Pro CC on his

The Defeat (x3)

Wave and Film Noir.

it true to the era.

making the H.264 deliverable.

underexposed whenever we worked with

not to make a wrong turn.

through dimmers and sometimes gels.

finalized a deliverable in 1080.

In the 1970s-set romantic drama By the Sea, a despondent,

avoid safe choices sometimes.

director Michael Hanekes The Piano

sizes and shapes, with textured and colored

With the high-efficiency system, a beam can

Berger and Jolie

Settings included a practical hotel location

be independently extended or retracted by

dictate as small as possible.

Right: The crew

carefully chosen road, and Berger shot the

Throughout the shoot, the cinematographer enthuses, my crew worked

for a final 2K output. Particular attention

The Next Generation

Having grossed more than a billion

Coogler sought to bring new life to the

which the bronze statue of the fictional

Left, top and bottom: A-camera/Steadicam operator

Ryans filmmaking style calls for a

palette as grounded in realism, and her

enters the ring. He doesnt have teammates

we had one camera on the Technocrane,

cent fixtures. If you stay with [the existing]

Robert Richardson, ASC helps

uentin Tarantinos crew is reconfiguring the set of

Unit photography by Andrew Cooper, SMPSP, courtesy of The Weinstein Co.

He and cinematographer Robert

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